


Heat

by JustAnotherSnakeCult



Series: The Heat Chronicles [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Explicit Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Not Beta Read, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Smut, Sorry Not Sorry, The flimsiest of premises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:07:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 35,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29035959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherSnakeCult/pseuds/JustAnotherSnakeCult
Summary: In which V is given the sex pollen/dart/potion/poison treatment. All in Act 2, but the timeline is going to be pretty wibbly-wobbly because honestly, it's porn so who cares, anyway?Y'all, CDPR's romances are SO sub-par, and their sex scenes are SO cringy ... that this happened.1,000% thirst fiction. It's gonna get pulpy up in here, chooms.Also 1,000% the first fanfic I've ever written, so be gentle with me, please.
Relationships: Dum Dum/Female V (Cyberpunk 2077), Dum Dum/V (Cyberpunk 2077), Female V & Viktor Vector, Female V/River Ward, Female V/Saul Bright, Female V/Viktor Vector, Goro Takemura & Female V, Goro Takemura/Female V, Goro Takemura/V, Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Saul Bright/V, V/River Ward
Series: The Heat Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150406
Comments: 421
Kudos: 477





	1. The Infection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening: "American Trash," Innerpartysystem
> 
> Alternative for any suggested music: the OST from the game is MASSIVE and has been great for tone-setting as well. Go wild, choom!

“Claire! Another!”

The red-headed bartender flicked her hand at V in a gesture of acknowledgement, her eyes never leaving the mixing station in front of her. Grabbing liquor bottles four at a time, she tipped them messily into a never-ending line of tumblers in front of her, sometimes thrusting them towards the throng of bodies pressed against the bar in front of her, sometimes swinging them 90 degrees to her left to set them at the server station, where pretty waitresses flitted in and out like hummingbirds from a feeder. 

The Afterlife was throbbing with weekend energy. The dance floor was a solid mass of limbs and skin; the bass from the speakers rattled up into V’s bones and caught behind her sternum. The haze from dozens of smokes, vapes, blunts, and dorph inhalers hung thick in the humid air, creating an eerie green haze above the hundreds of bodies crushed together in corners, booths, tables, and around the bar. She could just make out the glitchy blue of Johnny Silverhand’s contribution to the cloud from the corner of her eye. He was leaning against a wall not far from her stool at the corner of the bar, paying absolutely zero attention to the gonk with the acid green mohawk who kept stumbling into him - _through_ him, rather. V couldn’t see his face very clearly, but her heart sensed his absolute serenity, soaking in the noise, sights, and smells as if it were his own personal battery charger. They were here for him. 

\---

“V, let’s go out tonight. We don’t have to get wild—just somewhere for drinks.” V shook her head dismissively, letting out a little huff of breath from her nose. She was working through her morning routine; showering, dressing, shoving whatever food she had lying around into her face, and suiting up in her armor for the day. She had no intention of indulging him.

“Sure, Johnny, I will definitely have enough energy left over after two gigs today and oh, what was that other thing? Right, a biochip literally eating me from the inside out constantly.” She hadn’t even looked at him as she’d said it, continuing to settle her pistol and shotgun into their holsters, and her knife into the case strapped to her thigh. There wasn’t any malice in her voice, just a matter-of-factness; she had become even more of a workaholic since the complete shit show that was Konpeki Plaza, running herself ragged chasing leads and picking up side jobs for eddies. Most nights she didn’t even get her shoes off before she was tumbling into bed sideways. It would be a punishing schedule even for someone who wasn’t seizing in pain and hacking up blood periodically throughout the day. 

He had glitched right in front of her in the weapons cubby then, his hands both ‘ganic and metal wrapping around hers, shocking her into stillness. They had only touched a handful of times since he first appeared, confused and pissed, smashing her face against her apartment window, resulting in a slight kink in her healed nose that even Vik hadn’t been able to straighten completely. He might grab her shoulder on a gig, or she might throw an elbow into his ribs, but nothing so intense and purposeful as this. Her head snapped up, eyebrows raised in surprise.

Johnny had shoved his aviators up on his head and was peering into V’s eyes with one of the most earnest expressions she had ever seen him wear. His dark eyes bored into hers as he pleaded. “C’mon, V, this apartment is a goddamn prison; I’m losin’ my marbles. I gotta feel music, some energy, _somethin’,_ ” he paused briefly, lips twisting in discomfort over the next word, “P-please.” 

V’s breath caught in her throat; she didn’t know if it was the desperation in his voice or his longing that she could feel inside her as if it was her own. She heard herself relenting before she even knew she was speaking. “Jesus, Johnny. Okay, we’ll go somewhere and I’ll knock a few back.” He had released her hands almost immediately and grinned, the strange, electric weight around them disappearing. 

“V, you’re the tits. Also, your tits are the tits.” His aviators were back on, an already-lit cigarette popping into existence between his smirking lips.

She rolled her eyes. The switch back to regular ol’ hate-that-you-like-him Silverhand had been instantaneous. He made off-handed comments about her body all the time, which she generally didn’t dignify with a response. “Thanks, choom. Let’s roll.”

—-

V felt a cold, hard weight slide against her hand that rested idly on the bar, a little of the liquid inside trickling over the side onto her fingertips. She looked down at her new drink, a Johnny Silverhand special, a double in a tall glass, even though she hadn’t asked for that size (“The only drink worth havin’,'' he had said, insufferably, when she had asked for the first). She whipped her head up just quickly enough to see Claire give her a wink before turning back to the array of beverages she was masterfully juggling. 

V lifted the glass to her lips and chugged the entire thing, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as the tequila and chili burned pleasantly down her throat. If that drink counted as two (it had certainly tasted as if it were three), she was at her usual limit of nine for the night. The edges of her vision were pulsating and swirling, like she was looking through a slow-turning kaleidoscope. She focused her gaze at the neon sign hanging above Johnny’s head—or at least she tried to, giving up after several tortured seconds of trying to stop it from wavering around in her vision. It was definitely time to stop.

Her eyes slid down to Johnny, who seemed unmoving, his aviators hiding his expression, but V saw his metal hand braced against the wall behind him; she knew he was feeling her inebriation secondhand and smirked at the idea of him feeling even a fraction of the bodily insanity he used to chase daily after so many years floating in cyberspace. She absentmindedly brought her hand up to her mouth to swipe her tongue at the spilled alcohol from her abrupt drink delivery, not really considering the action until she saw Silverhand’s eyebrows shoot upward from behind his metal sunglasses' frames. _Aw, shit._ Heat that had nothing to do with tequila flushed her cheeks, hurriedly looking away from him and doing her best to nonchalantly move her hand away from her mouth. She stood up from her stool, immediately swaying on the spot. Jesus, she was more pissed than she thought. The air felt thick in her lungs as she filled them up to shout at Claire one last time.

“Claire! On my tab!” The noise was swallowed up by the atmosphere immediately, but V saw another hand flick, accepting it as her monetary dismissal and pushing away from the bar.

“Are we going already?” The voice in her head asked. She didn’t think Johnny Silverhand could sound pouty, but here he was, giving her another ridiculous gift. 

“Gotta. ‘M completely smashed, the chip … ‘m less tolerant,” the words ran together slightly, even in her mind.

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be a pus—” his retort and her retreat into the night were both cut short by a solid slab of muscle pressing up against her, stopping her exit abruptly. She craned her neck up—she had wedges inside her sneakers and certainly wasn’t short, but right now she was eye to eye with someone’s chest—and saw a large round head with an acid green mohawk descending toward her ear, with eyes that glittered like a predator in the night.

“Leaving so soon?” Hot, alcohol-soaked breath rushed past her face as he shouted over the music. “You looked like you were … _enjoying_ your drink. Want another?” 

V eyebrows knitted together in momentary confusion before a chill of recognition shot down her spine at the memory of licking her fingers. _Ugh, he thought I was looking at him and not Johnny._ She tried to shoot her glance in his direction, but the meathead in front of her was so wide, she literally couldn’t catch a glance of the piece of wall Johnny had been last leaning against. Where was he? He was in her fuckin’ head; how did he not know she would like him to glitch his digital ass over here before she did something stupid?

“Nah, I’m alright, thanks. Have a good one.” V gave the guy a thin smile that didn’t reach all the way to her eyes, shuffling to the side to try and press past him. The tequila in her toes turned traitorous then, dragging one sneaker edge along the sticky floor as she moved, causing her to pitch forward into Mr. Mohawk as she shuffled toward the exit. She felt his big, clammy paws clench around her bare upper arms and immediately regretted the decision to not wear a jacket over her shredded tank top. His eyes on her were almost as gross as his mitts. 

“Whoa there!” That hot whoosh of air was there again. She felt him start to move backwards, forcing her body to totter after him. “Let’s get you a seat over here.” 

No, thank you. V absolutely did not want a seat. A seat in her apartment, maybe, but definitely not in close proximity to this gonk. Her brain churned sluggishly as he continued moving, his bulk parting the press of bodies; disgust was turning into panic and quickly simmering into anger at her alcohol-blunted faculties. This was Johnny’s fault, dammit. 

She had enough clarity of mind to realize she was being compelled towards some booths tucked into the exit hallway; the crowd was definitely thinner there, and she could see the back of bouncer Emmerick’s head further on down the hall by the bottom of the stairs. _Okay, okay, you can work with this, V._ She shot another close-lipped smile in the mohawk’s direction, the leer on his face unmoving at her presumed compliance. 

She continued to let herself be led toward the alcove of tables and benches. The gonk’s grip on her was a steel trap; she had started surreptitiously flexing her muscles under it, testing for any lapse of vigilance on his part. She was steered directly against the wall moments later, the unexpected shift in position making her stumble again as her vision swam. _Stupid fucking feet. Fucking tequila. Fucking Johnny._ V did her best to slip a seductive veneer into place; it felt like she was grimacing instead, but her captor licked his lips like a cat before a feast. She darted her eyes to the side. The double doors to freedom were a mere 20 feet away now; she could feel the breeze from the night air every time they swung open. 

“Hey, hey, I’m right here,” the gonk’s raspy voice tried to snap her back into reality, but it was the movement of his hands down to hers, circling them tightly with the swell of his palms pressing into the insides of her wrists, that caught her attention; she could feel the thinnest hint of metal pressing into the delicate skin there, two twin points on both sides. V blinked slowly, formulating the haziest of plans as her heartbeat skipped at this unknown variable she could now sense.

“Hm? Sorry,” she said, only partially faking a drunken stupor. She shifted from one foot to the other, faking another drunken sway to push her weight on to her back foot. Mohawk leered again.

“You are out of it, babe,” he murmured ominously. “Let me get you out of here.” He drew back slightly, making to shuffle her along again, and V saw her opening.

“I don’t fuckin’ think so!” Her front knee came up hard and fast into the juncture of the gonk’s legs. The feeling of victory from his expression of surprise was fleeting; even as he started to crumple, she felt sharp stabs of warmth into the inside of her wrists, only for him to release her moments later as he collapsed onto the floor. 

Johnny glitched into existence at the flash of pain in her system. “The fuck, V?!” 

She didn’t bother to answer, breaking towards the doors with her heart thundering in her ears. A few moments later, she burst into the alleyway that led to the club, cool air washing over her skin. She gasped for it, vaguely hearing Emmerick’s shout of “No, you don’t, chuckle-fuck!” in the stairwell behind her. She forced herself to stumble forward toward the street and felt Johnny touch her for the second time today, metal fingers gripping painfully into her side as he struggled to help her along. “What in the hell was that?!”

V offered no answer again. The adrenaline, alcohol, and something else were swirling in her system, a potent concoction that soon set her shivering even as a thin sheen of sweat erupted on her brow. She pulled Delamain up on the holo, barely recognizing her own voice through a haze of panic and disorientation. “Del, please—the Afterlife—home, hurry.” The call cut out as her eyes drifted downward and the back her hands swam into focus; she turned them over to see four reddened punctures stretch across the both of them, two on each side. They weren’t bleeding, no, but she could see spider-like tendrils of red starting to twist out from each hole. She shook her head vigorously and immediately regretted it, nausea bubbling up as she willed herself to look again. 

She received confirmation that it wasn’t, in fact, something she was hallucinating, from Johnny. “What in the _fuck_ is that, V?” His voice, although mostly confused, also hinted at alarm. He was still holding onto her waist and she realized she was listing against him. 

“I don’t … I don’t know.” She swallowed thickly. Her tongue felt three times its normal size, her lips trembling at the effort to hold it inside her mouth. Her knees knocked together and she felt Johnny shift to readjust her, muttering under “about fuckin’ time” under his breath as a black Delamain taxi rolled up a few feet from where they were.

Was it about fuckin’ time? It had only been a minute since she called. Or had it been an hour? V felt her brain pulse in her skull while she tried to think. The sweat was starting to condense on her collarbone and chest now, her tank top dark from it as she was thrown unceremoniously into the AI taxi’s backseat. “Fuckin’ drive, Del,” she heard her own voice say, even as she watched the words fall from Johnny’s lips in the seat beside her.

The last thing she heard was the word “home,” although she didn’t know who had spoken it. The last thing she felt was the cold of Johnny’s metal hand still on her as her eyes slipped closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback welcome; just don't be a dick about it.
> 
> Shout out to ScorpioInk for "chuckle-fuck." It's a great word and you should all start using it immediately.


	2. The Diagnosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things I'm learning about myself: I am verbose. xD Sorry. 
> 
> This is already 100% more exposition than I planned on. Wade through with me, friends! Spiciness dead ahead!
> 
> TW: Discussion of date rape drugs
> 
> Enthusiastic consent is sexy, friends. Get it. No, really. Get it.
> 
> Recommended Listening: "Love Is A Bitch," Two Feet

_She was… somewhere. There were people, and she thought she could hear music, a gentle thrumming of a guitar far away. Everything was clouded, and she squinted to see through the thick red haze that blanketed her vision. A hand brushed her shoulder, and her head jerked sideways to see who it was, but none of the nondescript bodies paid her any mind or did anything to indicate their guilt._

_Johnny?_

_She couldn’t see or hear him. She felt something ghost through her hair, giving her tiny braid behind her ear a sharp tug. She had barely spun to follow the movement before another sensation followed: a firm squeeze and slap of her ass, the sound ringing as clearly as the sting._ What the … _Her hand flew back and she felt hot skin._ Skin? _V looked down._

_She was naked as the day she was born._

_Mortified, she glanced around in a panic, but again, not a single person paid her any mind. She felt another phantom touch sliding up the outside of her thigh, seeing nothing even as she stared directly at her bare legs. Confusion, anxiety, and there, tingling in the lizard part of her brain, a lick of arousal, pushing its way through to the forefront as these ghost hands continued to paw at her and_ multiply _: she felt another sharp tug in her hair at the same time something flicked at one of her nipples then the other, and yet still another something cupped her mound, all invisible to her eye. There was the pressure of fingers on the sides of her neck, the slightest tickle at the seam of her sex, and the more V tried to see, the thicker the red haze became. The lust inside had expanded, filling her to bursting, amplifying every brush of spectral hands. Her head lolled back, giving over to the sensations as she felt the hand between her legs, colder than the rest, apply pressure on the bundle of nerves hidden there. She felt a moan rip from her throat._

\---

“V? V, wake up.”

Her eyes shot open, the dream moan still escaping her lips into the rockerboy face hovering above her own. She wasn’t dead, then. She blinked once, twice, three times as she took stock of her actual situation: this was her apartment. This was her bed, the linens twisted into a tortured pile that had been shoved away in her slumber. Her hands flew to her torso in a shock of recall; she felt the rough fabric of the shredded tank top she had left the house in the night before, and a huff of relief escaped her. Her legs were bare, but her lacy black panties were on, and she was grateful for whatever scant coverage they provided her. V was confident in her body and getting naked for a shower or changing clothes hadn’t really been an issue with Johnny’s engram in her head; he would make a lewd comment or two, or sometimes even an appreciative one, she would ignore him, and that would be the end of it. Somehow, though, being fully bare from the waist down felt too intimate; she hadn’t even bothered to consider self-pleasure since his arrival. She was normally too exhausted for the thought to even occur.

“Jesus H. tap-dancing Christ.” Johnny’s face above her disappeared, and he reappeared a moment later on her couch, cigarette in hand. “You’re a wreck. No wonder you never go out, you can’t hold your fuckin’ liquour.” V didn’t need to look in a mirror to know that was absolutely true. She felt the bird’s nest of her hair wild from sleep, her stomach churned, empty and angry, and rubbing a hand sleepily to her face made it come away black with mascara and eyeliner residue. Her brain felt like it was trying to pull away from her skull, shoots of pain pinging into her eyes and down her neck as she pulled herself up to sitting, then standing, gripping the side of her sleeping cubby for support. The few steps to the bathroom may as well have been a mile; her heart thudded in her chest, and she felt so sensitive that she could feel every beat push hot blood through her veins. 

Her hands gripped the sides of the sink, the cool porcelain such a contrast to her warm skin that she sighed involuntarily. She had been hungover many times in her life; some mild, some severe, and a few (after the nights that involved blue glass or dorph) so excruciating that she thought death might be preferable. This, though; it was colored by alcohol withdrawal around the edges, but felt completely foreign. “Suck a bag of dicks, Johnny. This is your fault.” She turned the faucet on full blast and splashed her face with blessedly cold water, letting it drip from her chin as she repeated the motion over and over, feeling some of the haze in her vision finally begin to clear. Silence. V felt his brain turning over, trying to find a way to wiggle out of being the culprit. She groaned as the pangs fired up again. “Stop thinking so fucking hard, it hurts.”

He glitched into existence beside her then, perched on the edge of the sink like they were girlfriends having a ki-ki instead of a sentient parasite and its host. “I didn’t make you wear a metric ton of makeup,” he deflected. “You look like Alice Cooper.”

“I don’t know who that is, you ancient fuck.”

He snorted, not unkindly, as she grabbed a washcloth and started scrubbing at her face vigorously. “No appreciation for the past,” he muttered, more to himself than anything. “Ignorant fetus.” V couldn’t muster any more of a response than to blow a raspberry at him, which was cut short by his hand shooting out to grab at hers as she tossed the now-filthy washcloth into the sink. “Hey, what the fuck happened to your wrist last night, anyway?” He turned her palm upward before she could do so herself.

The two pinpricks were still there, red eyes staring at them angrily from a visage of pink, irritated skin, tendrils now sneaking an inch or two up her arm and licking into her palm. His metal hand snatched up her other, turning it to reveal a similar picture. V felt her skin prickle as a rush of warmth seemed to pulse from it, racing up and down her body. She swayed and felt Johnny pull on her slightly as a counterweight, keeping her on her feet. 

He spoke first. “I don’t like repeatin’ myself, but what the actual hell is up with that?”

“I don’t know.” A shiver wracked her body, even though it felt like 1,000 degrees in the small apartment. Why did Johnny’s hand feel so hot on hers? He wasn’t even real, for fuck’s sake. “I should call Vik.” She couldn’t see his eyes, of course, but she felt them on her, raking her from head to toe. His gaze may have been concerned, but it felt lecherous, and it was causing an ember of warmth to spark in her abdomen. _What the hell, indeed._ She yanked her hands away before goosebumps could break out and pinged the ripperdoc.

“Vector.”

“Hey, Vik.”

“Well, hey there, birdie,” Vik said with a grin. V wasn’t sure how they had come up with that nickname. She had put a hard and fast stop to him calling her “kid” the first time she had seen him, and he had tried out her full name once, but the daggers in her eyes had shut that down, too. “What’s up?”

“Do you have time to squeeze me in today? I’ve got… I need your medical expertise,” she finished lamely, holding up her wrist in the screen gingerly. The smile fell from Vik’s face instantly. 

“V, how long have you had that?” 

“Uh, 12 hours, maybe?” V winced as she tried to propel her thoughts backwards into time. That tall drink and green mohawk seemed like an eternity ago.

“More like 14,” Johnny corrected her, and she relayed the information. 

“Shit on a shingle,” muttered Vik. She blinked heavily into the holo; the reddish haze was starting to return to her vision. “V, listen to me. Take the coldest shower possible—I mean fucking freezing, V—and drink the biggest cup of coffee you can find ASAP.” As if she weren’t planning on the coffee part already; on top of all this weirdness, she was old-fashioned, regular hungover. “Then get down here. Double time.”

She nodded at him. Why was she so warm? “Okay. See you, Vik.”

“The biggest cup, V.” He hung up. She could see Johnny unsuccessfully poking around her little snack stash by the microwave; he had glitched over mid-call. 

“You’ve got some insta-tubes here, think those will do it?” he mused as she shuffled over. Her eyes followed down his arm to where he was pointing; it was a nice arm, smooth and toned, the forearm sculpted from years of guitar playing. A flush crept across her chest as she stared dumbly at the dips and shallows of the muscles. An image of the arm wrapped tightly around her waist, pressing her flush against his lean body, jumped unbidden into her mind. It blurred away just as quickly and was replaced by the muscles of his forearms flexing as his fingers worked their way inside of her. The flush deepened and a shaky exhale passed through her lips.

“Hey!” The hand attached to the arm was snapping in her face, an action that normally would have her jaw clenched in frustration. “Hello in there. V?” Her senses returned to her then, grunting a little as she shook her head through some pain to clear her eyes. She glared at him but said nothing. She didn’t trust her voice to not betray the mental picture that had just played in her head. Johnny seemed unbothered by the whole affair; had he even felt her reaction to them?

V snatched three tubes of latte from an overstuffed coffee mug where Johnny had just been pointing and tore their tops off, emptying all of them down her throat at once. It was enough caffeine for a 36-hour bender in a normal body. She doubted it would last her the day. Almost immediately, though, the heat on her skin started to recede, and the pounding in her skull lessened. She wasted no time tearing her tank top over her head and heading toward the shower stall, ignoring Johnny’s wolf whistle behind her. She waited until she was behind the privacy wall to shed her panties; he would not follow her in here, never had. It was a weird type of respect, considering all of the other things he never held back from saying. She yelped as the cold water came on full-blast from the showerhead as she turned the knob; she swore she could hear the droplets sizzling on her skin.

She stood there, water running down the curtains of her hair as her body temperature slowly lowered; she watched it drop in her biomon. Her heart rate had slowed also, although her blood pressure was still high. The angry red welts on her wrists seemed to shrink the longer she stood in the spray. _What is happening? This isn’t the chip. Jesus, I can’t believe I thought about Johnny doing that._ V had enough presence of mind to stop that crazy train before it left the station this time, turning off the water and toweling off before grabbing a fresh pair of undies (under the sink for this very reason) and walking to her closet, pulling on the first pair of leather pants and cropped tank she could find. The brush of the fabric against her skin felt extra rough; the tingles made her nipples bead up under the plain white top. 

“Get a hold of yourself, woman,” she said out loud. There was no response; Johnny had disappeared into whatever pocket dimension he went to when she showered. She shoved her pistol, discarded on the floor along with her shoes from last night, into the waistband of her pants at the small of her back and threw on a shabby hooded sweatshirt, its arms long cut away from a fit of someone’s sartorial pique. Her dark hair hung damp down to her shoulders, already starting to dry into chunky waves. She just had to make it to Vik’s, she told herself, taking a steadying breath as she stepped out of her apartment and slid the door closed behind her, making her way down a floor to the elevator. She ignored the slight trembling of her fingers as she pushed the call button.

\---

“It’s Heat.” The ripper’s voice was laced with concern.

“It’s what now?” V fidgeted against the vinyl of Vik’s chair. She had long ago shucked off her hoodie, craving the cool touch of the plastic on her skin. She had thrown up her hair into a high, disheveled ponytail after only a few minutes outside; it wasn’t a particularly hot day, but the weight of it against her neck had already seemed exhausting. She was back to feeling flushed and thick in the brain, albeit at a much less …intrusive level than this morning. Vik had shot her up with an air hypo literally as she walked through the door. She had yelped at the surprise of the punch against her shoulder. For the hangover, Vik had said with the tiniest of knowing smirks; V had shown up plenty of times looking way worse for the wear, and Vik, being the excellent doctor that he was, had learned her tells of one too many cocktails—especially if he had been there with her and their friends the night before. 

“Heat,” he repeated, as if it would make more sense the second time. “It’s the newest variant of flunitrazepam flooding the club scene.” She had been fucking _roofied?_ The balls on that gonk! Her eyes narrowed as she fumed. Vik noticed and pressed his hand into her shoulder gently. “Hey, hey, I need you to chill, birdie. Emotional spikes can reactivate the agent inside your neural network.”

V barely comprehended his words; all of her attention was trained on his hand on her shoulder. Vik was a solid ox of a man; his years in the ring, and his enthusiasm for boxing as a hobby outside of it, meant that his ink-covered arms were thickly muscled, his chest broad, his legs sturdy. Sometimes she found it amazing that such a dense man could have as delicate and dexterous of fingers as Vik did; now was not one of those times. The weight of his grip pressing her against the chair was like a hot brick; her skin burned under his touch. There was red buzzing softly at the edges of her vision. She turned her head back toward the doc only with great effort. “So what’s the deal, then?” Johnny flickered into view, leaning on the edge of Vik’s desk. His stance read nonchalance, but the way his teeth were working away at his fingernails did not. Vik took a deep breath, as if he was about to deliver a terrible blow.

And then he did.

“Heat makes you… suggestible. It bonds with the receptors in your limbic system, holding the floodgates open on them long after they should have shut. It makes you horny as hell and more likely to act on those urges by dampening your inhibitions like all rohypnol derivatives do. That fuckwit that hit you with it had _plans_ for you,” Vik gritted out between clenched teeth. She felt his fingertips dig into her shoulder slightly, in a protective way, and felt her eyelids flutter at the sensation. “Sudden rushes of emotion, adrenaline, and ingested chemicals can cause a relapse, if you will.”

A sharp bark of laughter that only she could hear cut through the air. Silverhand had stifled most of it successfully. “Holy shit, V. That explains some things.” At Vik’s words, her mouth had fallen open in … surprise? Dismay? It was all well enough, because Johnny twirled a cigarette between his fingers before bringing it to his mouth to light, making sure V could see his forearm flex, and she certainly would have gaped at that. This morning’s mental intrusion wasn’t a secret after all.

Vik plunged ahead in his explanation, unaware of the exchange that had just happened. “Heat is wicked because of its half-life. The longer it sits in your system untreated, the harder it is to rid yourself of it completely. If you got poked 15 hours ago now, and got a double dose,” a pause as he gestured to both wrists and did some quick mental math, “you’re looking at the better part of two weeks of this.”

“Christ on a bike, Vik. Adrenaline and anger are my career fuel. I don’t have time for this shit!” Just as the frustration flared in her voice, exactly what the doctor said would happen did: a pang of ache shot through the juncture of V’s thighs and she shot upright in the clinic chair, her pupils dilating slightly at the sensation. She gasped at the suddenness of it. Vik winced with the knowledge of what had happened, the hand on her shoulder shifting back and forth in an attempt to calm her back into the chair. She hurriedly closed her eyes so he couldn’t see them almost roll back into her head at his touch, swallowing hard before asking “Is there something I can do to control it?”

He pulled away from her then, and it took all of V’s self-control not to lean forward and chase his hand. He rolled away on his stool toward his shelves of supplies and rummaged a little, rolling back a moment later with a bottle full of red pills. “Hormone blockers. Take some when you know you might be in trouble, and it should kill most of the buzz. Who knows with your system, though,” he warned, gesturing vaguely in the direction of her neural port. “With that damned thing in there punching holes, I don’t know how effective they’ll be. Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor, and will help close up the blood vessels to control your heart and blood pressure.” So that's what the coffee had been about, then. "And cold showers," he offered belatedly, as if he knew how ridiculous it sounded.

V took the glass of water he held out to her as she shook out a pill from the container and tossed it into her mouth. “Shit sucks, birdie. I’m sorry for ya.” Even with his shaded glasses, V could feel Vik’s sympathetic gaze on her, and she gave him a weak smile. He was one of the first friends she had made in Night City, and she would do just about anything for him, as he would for her.

He hesitated for a moment, then spoke again, standing from his stool. “There’s one other thing that might help with symptoms.”

“What?”

“Uh, endorphins,” he shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly fidgety.

“For real? I got a guy I can call,” she said, flashing him the thumbs up. He shook his head at her.

“Nah, that synth stuff will take the edge off, but what’s really needed is a big rush of ‘ganic stuff all at once, like, you know… the kind that you get from… uh,” his sentence trailed off into nothing, and he suddenly busied himself with removing his ripper glove. 

Another snort from Johnny. He had been uncharacteristically quiet during this whole exchange, and as she reached to feel his thoughts, she bumped up against a hazy red barrier. He was there still, but further away somehow, shrouded from her. When he spoke, voice tinged with schadenfreude, he even sounded further away. “He means orgasms, you gonk.”

V groaned, butting her head backwards against the chair a few times in an attempt to release her frustration in a way that wouldn’t make her thighs clench together. “Vik, are you saying that I gotta find time to rub one out more often than usual? Or blow a ton of eddies on joytoys?” 

Vik was trying so hard to look at everything else in his clinic she thought he might burst into flame. “Wouldn’t hurt ya. Primary studies show that the most effective chem bursts come from encounters with partners, though. You know, familiarity and safety and all that.” 

Well, fuck. This was one hell of a drug. V sat up, cradling her aching head in her hands. She couldn’t just walk around being a ticking sex bomb. She had seen her share of illicit alleyway and club encounters, and while she didn’t pass judgment, the thought of losing control enough to do that absolutely terrified her. She felt the blunt edge of desire pressing against her, leashed in by the pills, and she barely felt Johnny at all. He was a glimmering blue presence in the back of her mind and that’s it; he had disappeared from the desk. Nothing but silence from him. “What about friends?”

Vik’s head jerked up from where he had been fiddling with some machines. “Hm?”

“What about people you know and trust to, uh, help you out in that regard, but aren’t in a relationship with?”

“No reason why that wouldn’t work,” mused the doctor. “So long as the trust level hits the threshold.” 

V straightened in the chair and squared her shoulders. “That settles it, then.”

“Settles what now?” 

She held a finger up to her lips in response, and he spotted a blinking red dot at the top of one of her optics, indicating she was self-recording. 

“My name is V, full name Valerie, but don’t fucking call me that. I am recording this message at the indicated date and time stamp below to indicate that I am of sound mind and clear faculties. If you are watching this you know that my system has been compromised by the roofie known as Heat, and chances are high that I’m exercising all my self-control not to jump your fuckin’ bones right now. Bursts of organic endorphins from orgasmic activity are the most powerful relief in the face of this goddamn hormone poison. This video is my enthusiastic consent for you to participate in any sexual acts I’m begging for you to take part in, even if I seem out of my right fuckin’ mind while I’m asking. Nothing will change between us if you accept, or if you decline, no matter what I might say or do. I trust you enough to help me with this predicament, if you’re of a mind to. Thanks, choom.”

The light flickered out in her optic, and V’s vision focused on the present. Viktor had slowly sunken back onto his stool as she had recorded her statement, watching with his mouth slightly ajar. She shrugged at him. “Figured it might be useful to have. You’ll be my witness if it comes to it, right, Vik?”

A grin cracked his lips. The audacity, resourcefulness, and unflappable pragmatism of this woman never ceased to amaze him. “Sure will, birdie.” He reached over and tucked an errand strand of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail behind her ear, something he had done dozens of times before, both as her doctor and as her friend. 

She reached up with surprising speed, catching his hand before it had a chance to pull backwards, nestling her cheek into his broad palm. A pinched sigh escaped her lips, and he could see her pupils stretch just a little wider. Her breath was coming quicker again, her hot exhalations warming his wrist. _Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :)
> 
> Comments and constructive feedback welcome; just don't be a dick about it.


	3. Vik's Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good news: three chapters in two days! :D
> 
> Bad news: have officially run out of mental rough draft! D:
> 
> Hoo boy, y'all. We love us some arms and hands up in this hizzle.
> 
> Recommended listening: "I'm On Fire," AWOLNATION (although the Springsteen original or John Mayer cover will also work nicely!)

The slight brush of Vik’s fingers against her temple had broken V’s tenuous grasp on her self-control. Any other day, and dozens of days before now, she wouldn’t have given his gesture a second thought, but today, when she felt this raw and unhinged, a strange hunger eating at her insides?  _ Good fucking night _ . Her cheeks flushed pink at the touch of his hand on her face, where she had guided it with her own before she had realized what she was doing. She blinked up at him, her embarrassment barely winning the battle over the flames licking into her brain again, keeping herself still against him. 

He had frozen in place, too, not moving in or pulling away. His eyes bored into hers over the top rim of his glasses, and he swore he could see her pulse pounding in her throat. V was gorgeous, there was no doubt about it; self-assured, whip-smart, and physically capable. Still, Vik had never considered her like  _ that.  _ From the first day she had walked into his clinic, a grin on her face and a knife strapped to her thigh, he had cared for her, felt protective of her in the way a big brother would, even if that brother was 20 years her senior. 

But now, in this moment, that protection suddenly looked very different: it looked like relief from the drug ravaging her system that he knew he could provide here in this safe space, and a reprieve from her own addled brain.

His thumb seemed to move of its own accord, stroking feather-lightly down her cheek to the corner of her mouth and gently across her lips. She remained still, but he felt her mouth tremble beneath his hand. When he spoke, it came out a half-octave lower than normal. “Birdie.” A pause. “V.”

“Yeah.” Christ alive, V thought she might pass out. The red tint had taken over her vision in its entirety, optics fully dilated and creating a rosy cast across the entire clinic. She loved Vik as a choom, and she knew that Vik loved her, but things between them had never even been in the neighborhood of carnal. Besides, he was her ripper; wasn’t there some sort of oath he had taken against patient fraternization? Surely there was. Her pulse thundered in her ears; when Vik spoke again, she was surprised she could even make out the words.

“Flip that video you just made onto my holo.” She beamed the signal to him before he was finished with his sentence, her mouth falling open in a little “o” of surprise at his request. Then several things happened almost instantaneously: the soft glow of playback lit the lenses of his glasses, his free hand rose to his belt and pressed a button near his hip, making the hydraulic door of the clinic hiss shut and the lock click into place, and the digit resting against her lips pushed past them into her hot mouth. A choked noise escaped from V’s throat, her tongue wrapping around his thumb involuntarily, smoothing along its entire surface, under and over, and under again. 

Vik let out a shuddering breath at the slick of her mouth on him as the last words of the holo echoed in his ear:  _ thanks, choom.  _ The crotch of his jeans was far less spacious than it had been a minute ago, and when he stood from his stool to hover over her at the side of the chair, there was no mistaking the strain of something firm against the denim. He pulled his thumb back from her lips with a wet pop, wasting no time in letting it stroke down her neck with the rest of his fingers, leaving a damp trail down to her clavicle, and lower. His bulky frame hovered above hers in the chair, his forehead slowly sinking until it met her own, which was damp with a fine sheen of sweat. “Let me help you.”

The pressure of his head was the only thing keeping V’s from spinning wildly. The line of moisture from her own saliva on his finger was a sliver of ice, threatening to shatter her hot skin open. A thin, reedy whine was all she could manage as a response. “ _ Please.”  _ She gripped one armrest tightly enough that the creak of vinyl could be heard clearly; the hand that had been resting against his on her face shot out and grabbed a handful of his collar, desperate. She made no move to kiss him; even in her lustfully unhinged state, that seemed like a hard, uncrossable line. She could not stop her chest from arching up off the clinic chair into his hand, however, especially as his hand slid down her abdomen, only to wander back up underneath the hem of her tank top and cup the broad expanse of it around a breast. A throaty groan of his name left her then, the hand in his collar releasing only to clap over her mouth.

Vik chuckled despite himself. He smoothed over the globe of flesh in his hand, squeezing gently while she shook underneath him. Her nipple was already stiff underneath the warmth of his palm; the heat coming off her skin was unreal, and he was reminded that a slow exploration, however tender he wished to be with her, might not be the kindest thing in the world to her right now. The muscles of her stomach were drawn taut, keeping her spine hovering just above the surface of the clinic chair.  _ Right, then. _

He pressed a soft kiss to her temple, shifting to rest it against his own, his free hand tugging at the fingers she had clamped tight over her mouth. They relented after a long moment and he quickly slid her arm up above her head, twining his fingers into hers to hold her hand there. His other hand abandoned its exploration of her chest, dropping to her waistband; the ripper’s fingers made quick work of the five-button fly. “Don’t hold it in,” he murmured softly. “More relief if you don’t.” And with that, he pushed his hand down into her panties, failing to hold back a soft gasp of his own at the absolute furnace of damp heat waiting for him.

“O-oh, Vik!” V wouldn’t be able to keep quiet if she tried now, the brush of his fingers against her sex sending something akin to electric shocks up her spine. One of his digits flirted with her entrance before sliding inside like it was a glove made just for him, followed quickly by another. Her hips bucked upward sharply, and she thrilled at the stiff resistance his muscular arm offered, shifting the heel of his palm deliciously against her clit as she rocked up again involuntarily, the friction igniting a fuse in her center. She could feel that it was a short one, and it sparked dangerously closer to the payload with each press of his hand and expert curl of his fingers inside her.

She was panting like an animal almost immediately, rutting against his hand, unable to see anything but a swirling red fog that the ceiling lights penetrated softly, bulbous red gas planets in the galaxy of her mind’s eye. She was vaguely aware of him whispering soft encouragements in her ear from where his head rested against hers, and the vulgar sounds of his fingers working in and out of her, only slightly muffled by the material of her pants. Soon, these sensations too faded away; the only thing left was the fuse, sizzling up the side of a stick of dynamite, throwing blue sparks off of its blazing trail. Her hand he didn’t have trapped jolted off the chair to grip his arm, using the leverage to push against him frantically, urging the fuse its last precious inches into the charge in her core.

It detonated.

The force of the blast sent an earthquake through V’s body, the shockwaves of pleasure racing from her center pushing a scream of ecstasy out of her mouth and tremors out of her limbs. Vik’s immutable grip on her—and in her—kept her anchored, bringing her back down into her right mind after minutes that seemed like eternities. 

She slumped into the chair bonelessly, hardly noticing Vik pressing another quick kiss into her hair as he released his grip on her hand. His other hand gently withdrew from between her legs moments later, pausing briefly to cup her mound in what she equated, in her comedown stupor, to a hug for her lady bits. He walked away and disappeared around a corner; she heard a sink running. Her fingers shook slightly as she did up the fly of her pants, but her mind—V felt clear as a bell. Her vision was crisp with no traces of red, her heart was beating normally, albeit a bit faster than normal, and she didn’t feel hot enough to crawl out of her own skin. She might even go so far as to say she was temperately comfortable. She gingerly slid out of the chair, her knees shaking only slightly as she reached out for her hoodie to shrug on.

Vik reappeared, giving her a once-over like he had just performed a medical procedure. “Well? How are we feeling?” His matter-of-factness put any possibility of awkwardness out the door on its ear.

“Like an actual million eddies, Vik.” V couldn’t keep the grin of disbelief off her face as he walked over to peer into her eyes clinically, looking her over for any residual signs of discomfort. When he flipped her wrists to take a peek at the puncture wounds, they were both surprised to find that the pink swirls of irritation had diminished almost into nothing. 

“Huh. Well, would ya look at that,” he said conspiratorially, a familiar smirk returning to his face. 

V felt a wave of intense relief wash over her, and she paused, unsure of how to express it along with her gratitude, her joy that their friendship seemed unchanged. Her eyebrows knitted together, her newly grounded brain willing the words to come.

“Vik, I—”

He  _ tsk _ ed at her, grabbing the forgotten bottle of pills off the chairside tray and pushing it into her hands. “Don’t even think about it. Now get outta here.” V beamed at him then, her smile lighting up the dim clinic, and turned on her heel to leave. She almost skipped towards the door as it hissed open, taking the stairs two at a time, stopping to pet the cat she saw at the top of the stairwell sometimes. He mewed at her and blinked up with his green saucer eyes. 

She decided she would pop in and say hello to Misty after all; her visit with Vik had been on the downlow and she had snuck past the shop on her way in. Her fingers nearly brushed the electronic door panel when they were suddenly frozen in place by a metal hand, flickering blue out of nowhere.

“We need to fuckin’  _ talk,  _ woman.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and constructive feedback welcome; just don't be a dick about it.
> 
> I need some suggestions for sexy time playlist songs! All flavors of music (and sexy times) wanted. Drop some tunes below! :)


	4. The Discussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We've got lots of feels and are inadequately equipped to describe them!
> 
> I should probably go ahead and remove the "porn without plot" tag, because whew, child, if this ain't that. xD
> 
> Recommended listening: "Criminal," Fiona Apple, or: Tibetan singing bowls (you'll see).

V had to coax her eyeballs out from the back of their head where they had rolled to look at Johnny. The sight of him surprised her: his hair was mussed and pushed out of place, and his tactical vest was on but askew, a flap hanging unbuckled on one side. Her eyebrows arched in surprise, and—if she was honest—a smug sense of satisfaction at her… treatment having affected him so. So many of her days now were spent catering to  _ him _ , searching for a solution to  _ his  _ engram overwriting her brain,  _ his  _ presence causing spasms of pain and bouts of bloody coughing without any warning. It was only right that the street go two ways.

“So talk.” She wrenched her wrist from his grasp and he let go without much of a fight, the back door to Misty’s shop sliding open; she could hear low, dulcet tones speaking inside. She moved quietly through the back entrance to see the back of Misty’s head bent over the counter, a spread of tarot cards arrayed in front of a harried-looking corpo, clinging to the reader’s every word like it were life-giving water. V wiggled her fingers in a silent greeting as she caught Misty’s eye, stepping up into the shop space to wait.

“Never met a pill I didn’t like until today,” Johnny hissed. He was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. “I could barely fuckin’ see, couldn’t fuckin’ talk—Jesus, couldn’t even fuckin’ glitch away from that…show.” He spat out the last word like it tasted bad. “At least that other shit you have blocks me out completely.”

“Huh. Weird.” It  _ was _ a little weird that the hormone blockers hit him similarly to the blue pills Misty had sent V away with some weeks ago; she suspected there was a chemical overlap in there somewhere, but honestly? Not her problem, for fucking once. The pills had been effective, and along with the other management methods Vik had shared, the knot in her stomach that had been there since she first felt the pin pricks had loosened somewhat. She  _ could  _ manage this, and it would pass.

“Yeah, sure, you’ll  _ manage  _ it with every Tom, Dick, and Harry you fuckin’ stumble into.” Words were pouring out of his mouth unbidden now; the button the pills had placed on his snark was undone and it was all leaving in a rush.

“Can’t fuckin’ fault the good doctor, you’ve got a body like a goddamn Cadillac—”

“Thanks, but what’s a Cadillac?”

He ignored her. “—don’ want you to suffer, V, but Christ, that was the worst fuckin’ thing. Could barely even  _ feel _ anything, and if you’re gonna be a walkin’ horndog, I should at least be able to get my rocks off—”

“Johnny.” 

“—writhing around in that fuckin’ chair like a—”

“Johnny.”

“—wetter than a rainstorm in the fuckin’ ocean—”

“ _ Johnny.”  _ It was a miracle V had remained so serene this long (she was sure the soft pink light from Himalayan salt lamps and Tibetan singing bowl noises being piped in through the speakers had something to do with it), but the sharpness in her voice brought an abrupt stop to his self-absorbed stream of consciousness. She glowered at him as her fingers trailed over the shelves full of crystals and semi-precious stones Misty offered for sale. “Did you want to talk  _ to  _ me, or just  _ at  _ me? Because I feel the best I’ve felt in a long fuckin’ time, and that includes before you started your hostile takeover of my brain.” She paused, the hand in her hoodie pocket rattling the bottle of pills that rested there for effect. “If these are going to keep me in check enough to function for the next two weeks, you best fuckin’ believe I’m popping them regularly, and I don’t give a flying fuck about what they do to you.”

She could feel the intensity of the glare through his mirrored lenses. She was not normally this harsh with him. Call her soft, but Johnny was just the kind of asshole V liked in her life; selfish on the outside and sweeter than expected inside, for anyone who took the time to work through his prodigious outer shell. The biochip had shattered that open for her in pretty quick order. She knew she should be taking the omega blockers more regularly than she did—perhaps if she had been, there wouldn’t be as much of an issue now—but she had grown fond of his presence quickly. And despite his insistence at continuing the arrogant rock star act, V could feel some of the walls inside him had been broken down. 

“Goddamn, V, didn’t think you had a backbone that stiff in you,” he sneered. A pause, during which she could feel the venom rise in her (his) throat. “Guess you’ll be dealing with a lot of other  _ stiff  _ shit soon enough.”

She wasn’t sure if the flare of red-hot rage started in her brain and shot downward, or started in her core and shot upward. Either way, her eyes glazed over and her lips parted, huffing out ragged breaths at the scale of her arousal jumping from zero to 6 in a matter of a few seconds. 

His nasty smirk pissed her off even more, which meant she had to grip onto whatever was behind her to still her quaking hands. She was grateful her hoodie covered her chest, where her nipples were suddenly at attention—as if he couldn’t feel them like they were his own.

“Look at you,” he sniggered. “Did I do that?”  _ Fuck this cocksucker _ , V thought. She couldn’t dignify him with a response, because the truth was yes, he had done that, and she wasn’t entirely sure how much of her response was drug-induced.  _ Gonna need to sort that shit out later. _

Instead, she drew the bottle of pills from her pocket, loosening the cap, shaking two out. “Yeah, prick, look at me,” she parroted his words as she placed the pills on her tongue, letting her mouth hang open briefly, taunting him with the inevitability of what was next. 

“You fucking bitch, don’t you dare.” A hard, dry swallow and her lips parted again, flaunting the medicine's disappearance. As he began to shimmer in front of her, one of her hands raised and the first two fingers formed a V on either side of her mouth. She wiggled her tongue between them lewdly, feeling his anger from her intimation radiate down low into her belly before he disappeared behind that fuzzy red curtain. 

“V?”

It was like snapping out of an alternate reality; her arm whipped back down to her side and she spun to face the voice so fast she almost stumbled. Misty was watching her interestedly, her chin resting in one hand, propped up by the elbow against the countertop.The corpo was long gone. She quirked her eyebrows knowingly; while V doubted she knew the exact nature of their conversation, Misty knew about her head guest and was definitely in tune with some sort of other plane of existence.

“Hey, Misty. I wanted to stop by and see how you were.”

“Good thing, too. Your aura is seriously fucked up.” 

V sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. That was one way to put it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :) Comments and constructive feedback welcome; please don't be a dick about it.
> 
> There are a few directions (ie people) to go at this sort of crossroads. I'm pondering the next move. Please let me know what you think it should be!


	5. The Ronin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did someone ask for shame kink? No? Bueller?
> 
> Please accept this song recommendation to enhance your reading experience! While not necessarily lyrically relevant, I found the mood and ambiance to greatly enhance my writing state of mind.
> 
> Suggested listening: "It Will Come Back," Hozier
> 
> I have added other songs in previous chapters as well, if you want to give them a shot with an aural addition. :)

She was dozing in a ray of afternoon sunshine when her phone pinged with a text from Goro Takemura. And then again. 

**TAKEMURA [03:43 PM]:**

_ V. Are you available? _

**TAKEMURA [03:43 PM]:**

_ I wish to show you something remarkable. _

**V [03:45 PM]:**

_ Hit me, choom. _

V cracked an eye open, moving the minimum amount of muscles to tilt the screen toward her face in order to read the messages and reply. She was lying spread eagle on her bed with a large chunk of glistening black tourmaline resting on her lower abdomen between her hips, waiting for whatever “grounding” and “protection from negative energies” it was supposed to be doing. Misty had shoved it out the door with her after V had spent the better part of an hour recapping the absolutely bizarre last 24 hours, starting with tequila and ending with her rude gesture towards the open air in the shop. Her sweet, sensitive friend had immediately squeezed her in a hug so strongly V felt a vertebrae in her spine pop and set about finding the New Age solution to her issue.

“Right in the middle of your sacral chakra for at least 20 minutes a day, and don’t forget to brush your aura downward!” she had called after V as she left. As soon as the apartment door had opened, she had abandoned it at the bottom of her closet with no intention to revisit her spiritual instructions. What a bunch of hooey.

\---

_ Last night had been… rough. It had started having to stand in a cold shower so long that she was afraid she would catch hypothermia and ended with Johnny glitching back into existence just as she was trying to close her eyes. She had cut him off before he got more than “V” out of his mouth. _

_ “I’m sorry, you’re sorry even though you won’t say it, everything’s fine even though it’s not, and I feel like a live wire dancing in a puddle on the ground right now, so please save it, Johnny.” She had been in the middle a fit of fevered shivers, the oversize t-shirt she normally slept in sticking to her sweat-slicked body. He could see the pink coils on her wrists had returned, wrapping further up her arms than they had before, and the muscles of her thighs tense against the pressure between her legs. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut, brows furrowed together in a silent battle of wills with her own body.  _

_ She should have taken another pill but hadn’t, and he knew it was because of him.  _ Pretty fuckin’ tough to be pissed at her right now, huh? _ And so, miracles of miracles, he had saved it. He had sunk down onto the edge of the bed silently, and swept her hair away from her face and neck with something approaching compassion. Her lips had twitched in silent gratitude, which had emboldened him to press the cold planes of his metal hand and fingers against the back of her neck. Her coo of relief had shot straight into his ears and settled into his chest disconcertingly. He had stayed, humming an unknown melody while his hand rested on her, until the crease of her brow slowly unwrinkled and he heard her breathing even. _

\---

And so here she found herself, after one of the most torturous nights in recent memory (and she had seen some pretty  _ un-fucking-believable  _ nights lately), balancing a shiny rock above her hoo-ha. She had spent the entire day uncomfortably warm and coiled tighter than a cobra in a too-small basket. Johnny, one-time king of excess, had suggested that she lighten up after the sixth latte, and the uncontrollable jitter in her feet and legs had agreed.

Another ping from Goro—what she could only assume was the incoming “remarkable.” V peeked and was met with one of the funniest things she had seen in Heywood knows how long:

**TAKEMURA [03:49 PM]:**

****

A snort escaped her, the corners of her mouth twitching upward. She pressed up onto her elbows then, managing to keep her mystical pelvis rock balanced.

**V [03:50 PM]:**

_ I do find you an impressive specimen, Goro, but I took you for a more modest man. xD _

**TAKEMURA [03:50 PM]:**

_ This phone’s UI is most frustrating. You needn’t mock me so. _

**TAKEMURA [03:51 PM]:**

_ What is the meaning of this xD? _

**V [03:52 PM]:**

_ It’s like when… you know what? Not important. What did you mean to show me? _

“It’s not cute,” she heard Johnny grumble from his spot reclined on the couch. In the same moment, Goro’s face popped up on the holo. The part of it that wasn’t hidden by what appeared to be a large sandwich, anyway. 

“V. This is real octopus. I am certain.” He sounded like a kid on Christmas morning. A genuine smile cracked V’s grim expression. 

“Happy for you, Goro. Is it as delicious as you’ve dreamed?”

“It is incredible. What are you doing? Please come meet me before we head to the industrial park for surveillance. I shall purchase one for you.”

Johnny guffawed. “The pinnacle of romance for a corpo dog like him, a sandwich!” V waved a dismissive hand at him with annoyance, turning her attention back to Takemura.

“I don’t eat octopus any more out of fear and respect, Goro. I’m pretty sure they’re aliens.”

A disbelieving huff. “Do not be ridiculous.”

“They can open jars and turn colors with their emotions. They have beaks  _ and  _ tentacles, for fuck’s sake. They’re really running the show here, and we are their dryland pawns, choom.”

“… I will have to consider this. We will speak tonight. Be well, V.” 

\---

“I  _ can’t  _ skip a blocker for this, Johnny.” V sighed as she stood in her weapons cubby, mentally juggling her options for this stakeout with Goro. Theoretically, tonight was about stealth, and she had wasted no time strapping her two favorite knives onto the outside of her flexible-but-form-fitting woven pants. They were non-negotiable. The shotgun, though—there was definitely an argument to be made for and against that.

“Fuck, V, I know, but just—oh, shit! What about just half of one?” He looked proud of himself at the idea, like compromise wasn’t just a terrible resolution where both parties were miserable instead of just one. 

V sighed heavily; she couldn’t help feeling like she was trying to pacify a whiny child. “Fine, but I’m taking another with me in case I need it.” Her eyes settled on Lizzie; she hadn’t used the pistol for a job in a while, and it was a little underpowered for the Arasaka huscle they might come up against, she couldn’t deny the compact package it made, even with a silencer screwed on. She lifted the back of her techweave, long-sleeved shirt and tucked it into the small of her back. The cool iron against her skin was a small mercy. She yanked her hair up into a top knot; it wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t planning on anyone examining it, either.

“Just remember, this corpo cunt is not on our side. He’ll dump you as soon as he gets what he wants.” Johnny flicked imaginary ash off the end of his cigarette smugly; he prosthelytized to V about this particular point whenever Goro came up.

“Yes, sir, I fuckin’ know.” She tipped a ruggedly-snapped red pill half into her mouth and swallowed it with the last of her coffee from earlier, cold and sickly sweet now.

“Could get used to you sayin’ that.” An exaggerated waggle of eyebrows behind mirrored aviators.

“Shut up, Johnny.”

\---

Nothing was happening. She and Goro had maintained mirrored stances for nearly two hours, leaning against the top ledge of the parking lot, pointing out security features, getting head counts on guards, hypothesizing on mech deterrents that might be present, and examining the structure for advantages in the layout to exploit. The extraterrestrial properties of octopodes had not been revisited. But now? Nothing. The silence stretched between them, lengthy but not uncomfortable. His elbow had brushed against hers several times, innocuously, and her knees had begun to quiver, each touch feeling like a spike into her over-sensitive skin. She had long since popped her other hormone blocker while Johnny wasn’t around, knowing she would catch hell for it later, but her face had grown steadily hotter. Vik’s voice echoed in her head:  _ With that damned thing up there punching holes, I don’t know how effective they’ll be.  _ Christ on a cracker.

V tried to turn and slide down the concrete barrier as casually as possible. Did she hide her shaky exhale enough? She froze, her eyes shut tight with cautious optimism.

“V? Are you alright?”  _ Shit.  _

“Yeah, Goro, I’m just, uh, taking a breather.”  _ That sounded reasonable, right? Yeah. Yeah, it did.  _ The rustle of fabric as he crouched beside her brought an end to her flimsy delusion. 

He looked at her seriously; she had tucked her chin down against her chest in an attempt to hide her symptoms, but it was a futile attempt. He saw her flushed cheeks and the sheen across her optics. “You look unwell. Do you need to lie down?”

“No, no.”  _ I need a coffee. A cold shower. A hard fuck.  _ “I just need a second to rest.” She felt a firm finger curl under her chin then, the knuckle tilting her face slowly but inexorably up to face Goro’s. She quickly squeezed her eyes closed again, willing the soft redness pushing against the edges of her sight away.

“Look at me,” he said, his tone brooking no argument. She cursed her traitorous eyelids, which flew open at the sound of his voice. She knew her pupils were wide, far too wide for the dusky twilight falling on them now. The thin slivers of silver in his optics were mesmerizing, and V caught herself biting her lip as he stripped her bare underneath his gaze. Her hand rose to push a non-existent strand of hair off her face in a desperate attempt to ease the tension. It was her second mistake.

His deft cybernetic fingers snatched her wrist, stopping it mid-motion. He turned it first one way, and then the other; as he exposed her palm, she saw with mounting horror that it was laced with tender, blushed coils. Goro pushed back the sleeve of her shirt before she could even consider what lie she ought to tell him, revealing the two red pin pricks; they had swelled and deepened in color, the skin around them practically watermelon pink. 

“V.” Her name from his lips with that edge lit her belly on fire, and the words tumbled from her mouth like water from a broken dam.

“It’s nothing, it’s really—I just need a drink of water or something, it’s—I went out the other night and I—don’t worry, I wouldn’t do anything to fuck this up—it’s temporary—” Her cheeks blazed, not only from arousal but embarrassment, as he studied her impassively. “I know this is important to you—us—I took some pills that are supposed to help—I’ll be alright in a minute—”

Goro’s finger under her chin turned into a firm grip on her jaw, keeping her from turning her head away from him in shame. “What is it?” It wasn’t a question; it was a demand. 

V couldn’t stop thinking about that firm grip on her hips or her ass, and  _ holy fuck, am I going to cry? WHO AM I? So goddamn unprofessional. _

“It’s Heat.” She beamed him the video she had made in Vik’s clinic—she was clearly not in a good place to explain the scientific nuance—and shuddered from terrific anxiety as she watched his eyes alight with the playback.

A minute stretched into two, then into three, as the glow from the video faded from his eyes and he continued watching her suck in shivering breaths. Her bottom lip was plump from her teeth’s attention, and quivered with every inhale and exhale.

“V.”

“Hey.” She bit the word out, trying to sound casual and failing fantastically.

Another pause, and then a rustle, as she felt something—Goro’s other hand, she realized belatedly—fist into the hemline of her shirt.

“Remove this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome.  
> We can have a little soft Johnny, as a treat. ^.^  
> Things I find hilarious and pay homage to here include: Misty telling Jackie how to brush his aura, and Goro being a boomer using a cell phone.  
> No, I don't know why I always end up writing so much dialogue, Sorry 'bout it. xD


	6. Goro's Assistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -fans self- Well.
> 
> This took a very different turn than what I had originally envisioned, but it felt so correct for the characters that I just said "fuck it" and let Calgon take me away. xD
> 
> TW: Guilty, victim-blame-y shit V has to work through
> 
> Suggested listening: "Desire," Meg Meyers

“I—you don’t—Goro—” V couldn’t turn the tap on her running mouth off. “I just wanted to explain—it was easier—I wasn’t asking for—” 

A little shake of her head, compelled completely by him and his hand around her jaw. “I understand.” Another tug on her shirt. “Remove this.”

“But—” 

His fingers clamped over her mouth then, firm and unyielding. Her eyelids fluttered. “V. Do not make me ask you a third time.” 

The tremor in her hands was unmistakable as they rose to the zipper by the mock turtleneck of the tactical garment; it wrapped down and under one armpit to the side seam to facilitate entrance and exit of the skin tight fabric. As the closure came apart tooth by tooth, Goro’s eyes left her face to focus on the patch of flesh that was revealing itself, burning lasers into her already overheated skin. V felt his grip on her mouth loosen in his distraction, and she took advantage as she yanked an arm out of its sleeve, beginning to shrug out of the shirt. “Goro, the camera—”

Another rustle, and then a sharp but muffled  _ crack;  _ the surveillance camera mounted high on the parking garage tower crackled and sparked as the life fizzled from it. She saw Goro’s arm extended, a silenced pistol in his hand. His eyes hadn’t even left her body. 

Her cunt clenched. 

She had finally wrested victory away from her top; she tossed it unceremoniously behind her, leaving her in a simple black bra, suited for activity and not for sex appeal. The clothing had barely dropped from her hands before a flurry of movement made V’s head swim. Suddenly, she was on her stomach, stretched over Goro’s thighs; he hand propped his back up against the wall of the garage, legs extended in front of him and knees bent slightly to create the perfect crook for V’s hips to rest perpendicular to his own.  _ What in the actual fuck?  _

The press of his palm into the small of her back was enough to erase any coherent thought from her mind, or she surely would have protested as he yanked the waistband of her pants down roughly, exposing the swell of her ass and lace of her thong to the cooling night air. The bunched fabric met the leather straps of her knife holsters, and then Goro was unbuckling them before she could protest. Not that she had the capacity to raise any complaints right now. The weapons hit the pavement with a soft thud.

When he finally spoke again, his voice was rough against the gentle strokes his knuckles had started to skim over each cheek. “V. If you wish me to cease this activity now, or at any point, say the words ‘cherry blossom’. Understood?” 

Vhe nodded her head vigorously, not trusting her own voice. He apparently did not find it sufficient, however, because then the hand on her back was suddenly around her bun, pulling her head up and back off of where she had been cradling it in shaking hands.

“Say you understand.”

“Yes, I—” a ragged intake of breath, “I understand.” The clouds in the sky above her rolled in post-apocalyptic red waves. Goro released his grip on her hair, and she felt the band pull away with his fingers, dark curtains falling down around her face. She was grateful for the screen to hide behind…and suspected he had released her top knot for that very reason. His tender touches on her backside had twined her up into a tight, trembling knot.  _ Smack. _

The groan that left V’s mouth was obscene. Her flesh stung where his hand had struck her left cheek, heat blossoming against the night air. He was already back to smoothing his hands over her feather-lightly as she struggled to process the reality of their situation. His other hand was nestled firmly in the juncture between her neck and her shoulder, thumb drawing small circles against the edge of her shoulder blade.  _ Smack. _

“Ah!” Her body twitched at the second, sharper contact, a mirror reflection on her opposite side. She felt a hot tear squeeze out from behind her tightly closed eyes.  _ Smack. _ Christ, right in the same spot as before. V whimpered pitifully. She could feel her arousal between her legs, throbbing steadily in time with her pounding heart. 

She felt Goro pull in a quaking breath. “V. Do you understand that you have been subjected to the effects of this…heat…through no fault of your own?”

Her mind reeled, rebelling against the words even as she knew them to be true. It would be a lie to say she hadn’t been wrestling with “could’ve”s all day.  _ I could’ve not had that last drink. I could’ve paid more attention to my surroundings. I could’ve gone somewhere besides the Afterlife.  _ “I…” Her hesitation prompted another swing of Goro’s hand.  _ Smack. _ It was the hardest yet, placed with precision right along the seam where the swell of her ass met her thigh. V keened.

“I understand!”  _ Smack. _ Its twin strike landed. The heat inside her core was starting to work its way outwards; she could feel her arousal starting to leak onto her outer lips. She bowed under the weight of her shame, trying to sink into the concrete. Goro’s legs held her steady. She could feel the hard press of his groin against her hip. It was not a helpful sensation.

“V.”  _ Smack.  _ “Do you understand—"  _ Smack.  _ “—your desire to assist others—”  _ Smack. _ “—even to your detriment—”  _ Smack. _ “—is a rare quality—”  _ Smack. _ “—that should be celebrated?”  _ Smack _ . “Do you understand—”  _ Smack. _ “—that this horrid city—”  _ Smack. _ “—is unworthy of you—”  _ Smack. _ “—and you deserve—”  _ Smack. _ “—so much more?”  _ Smack. _

The blows rained down as the trebuchet in V’s chest wound back, tighter and tighter, until she felt like she couldn’t breathe; she could see nothing but that cursed red haze now, punctuated with sizzling blue glitches whenever his hand landed. Her entire ass glowed pink from Goro’s attentions; she could feel him breathing hard against her as he brought his hand down one last time, the flat of his palm snapping against her exposed sex.  _ Smack.  _

The rope on the trebuchet snapped, launching a wretched sob out of her lungs.  _ “Yes, I understand, Goro!”  _ She shuddered as the tears fell freely now. How had he known this was what she needed? She barely even knew what she needed any more, let alone determining if it was her needing it or Johnny’s projection into her soul.

“Good.” She felt him sigh out the word more than heard it, the fingers of his hand on her shoulder winding their way into her hair. They did not clench as she expected; instead, the pads of his fingers massaged her scalp softly, the feeling delicious enough for her to be caught again by surprise as his fingers slid between her folds, pressing hard circles into her clit. V wailed, her head, neck, and shoulders arching backwards as her hands scrambled for purchase against the concrete, driving her weight back against Goro’s hand. He would undo her in moments like this— and he knew it, because his touch was gone as fast as it had appeared, and she felt the rough tug of her pants being yanked the rest of the way down her legs and off her body.

He swung one of her thighs up and around effortlessly, guiding her up to sit astride him with that touch and his hand on her head alone. She was a rag doll, limp with the fever of desire, barely coherent enough to follow his instructions to hold onto him. She caught a glimpse of his eyes then, as she draped her arms around his shoulders and shoved her fingers into his hair to free it from the confines of his ponytail. They were dark pools of deep hunger, staring into her broken brain. She heard the clinking of a belt buckle, the rustle of fabric, and felt his hand moving between their bodies. There was a press against her folds, then, hot and hard; her body moved instinctively, shifting up and forward to make room, and then down as Goro sheathed himself fully inside her without preamble. 

“ _ Fuck.” _ It was the first verbal indication that he was anywhere near as undone as she was, his hand squeezing where it rested at the back of her neck before joining his other to crush her hips (as hot as she had suspected earlier) beneath his grasp, encouraging her to move. V would normally need adjustment time, but the wet squelch of her walls around him as he entered her indicated her progress far beyond that point.

She began to ride him earnestly, setting a brutal pace as her hips ground against his, searching for the phantom pressure she still felt from his fingers. Her tortured whines mingled with the soft grunts escaping him as he thrust up into her with powerful purpose. Her head dropped, her mouth open, hot and panting against the skin of his shoulder in a not-quite-kiss. It seemed like only moments before he was straining to speak, lips pressed on her ear.

“V—where—”

“Inside,  _ please,  _ Goro—” She felt the push of his digits against her clit again, circling with the same resolve with which he fucked. 

“Together?” V’s brain short-circuited at the question, barely able to hiss out a  _ “Yessss”  _ before she was convulsing with the white-hot pleasure of her release, her teeth sinking hard into Goro’s shoulder as she trembled violently against him. The sharp breath he sucked in rushed past her ear as he spilled into her with a long, low moan.

They twitched against each other for some time afterwards, the aftershocks of orgasm pinching at their comedown. V’s head felt crisp and razor-focused; her vision was sharp again, and a peek at her wrists, as she reluctantly sat up and away from Goro, revealed her persistent wounds had calmed into almost nothing once again. She winced as the tender skin of her ass brushed the rough fabric of his pants; she knew that smart would be there for a day or two.

“V.” 

“Hm?” She couldn’t help a satisfied smirk from tugging at her lips as she saw post-pleasure Goro beneath her: cheeks flushed, eyes glassy, mouth slightly ajar, a decently-sized bruise forming on his shoulder from her bite, hair in disarray around his face. 

“I cannot accept your hypothesis that octopi are an alien life form.”

She threw her head back, indulging in her first belly laugh in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback welcome. :D
> 
> I appreciate everyone's encouraging words. Thank you for coming on this CP77 THOT journey with me! xD


	7. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... aaaaand we're back to the talking. xD
> 
> Apologies in advance for anyone who was hoping for substantive River content. He is a bootleg Lenny Kravitz and so boring I actually dozed off in front of the computer while he drove V to the farm. Sorry 'bout it.
> 
> Suggested Listening: "Location," Khalid

**V [04:14 PM]:**

_Hey, Vik? Can I ask an embarrassing question?_

**RIPPER VIK [04:15 PM]:**

_I’m your ripperdoc, Birdie. You can try but you’ll fail. ;)_

**V [04:16 PM]:**

_This drug that’s in me—does it matter how, uh, enthusiastic_

_I am in search of relief? Is it going to get weaker the more time_

_that goes by?_

**RIPPER VIK [04:16 PM]:**

…

It had been three days since V and Goro had infiltrated Arasaka Industrial Park and each other. They snuck in, hacked the parade float, and got out without dropping a single body; V’s senses had felt hyperactive; she could almost smell gonks as she slunk up on them to squeeze the consciousness out of their lungs and shove them in the nearest receptacle. Goro, she assumed, was just naturally a stealthy individual. He had certainly surprised her enough. 

Her head since then had been remarkably clear; she kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the itchy heat to start crawling under her skin or the pangs of want to start streaking through her, but they just…hadn’t. She had been more productive in the last 72 hours than she had been in the last month: neutralizing cyberpsychos for Regina, collecting all sorts of people and things for Wakako (that woman really needed a personal assistant so she didn’t keep losing all her shit), and most importantly, finagling a meet with the VooDoo Boys, who had arranged to purchase the chip currently nestled into her brain. She hadn’t even needed any blockers (beyond the ones she needed to be taking to keep Johnny’s engram from eating her up any faster, which she continued to ignore).

\---

_“Christ, V, what did that old Arasaka fuck do to you?” Johnny glowered at her from behind his aviators, lounging on the bed as V got undressed, peeling clothes sticky with blood and gunk off of her frame to reveal several fingerprint-sized bruises along her hip bones, and a few lingering splatters of broken blood vessels on her rear._

_V sighed heavily. She hadn’t really_ told _Johnny what had happened in the parking garage, because she honestly didn’t have the time to listen to him bitch about what a sell-out, corpo slut she was. The distance from the blockers seemed to have the effect of guarding those drug-fueled memories from him, while he was locked away behind that heavy red curtain. He had spent most of his first day free from it alternately begging her to smoke a cigarette for him and badgering her for details about what had gone down at the industrial park; she had relented to the smoking request only after he had smacked her microwave burrito out of her hand as she tried to eat dinner three times in a row._ What a man-child. _She had not relented regarding her gig, but Johnny wasn’t stupid, especially, once he caught a glance of the almost non-existent pin pricks on her wrists._

 _She snapped at him. “Nothing I didn’t consent to, Johnny. What do you care, anyway? Would’ve embarrassed you with my_ writhing. _” He had the decency to look a little embarrassed._

_“Shit, V, I didn’t know how bad this heat crap was when I said that,” he had offered in another non-apology._

_“Whatever. It’s not like you haven’t marked up groupies worse.” She already had her back turned to him, walking towards the shower._

_“Yeah, but their asses weren’t a work of art like yours is, kitten.”_

_She smiled despite herself, disappearing behind the shower partition. “Thanks, prick.” The door slid closed._

_\---_

**RIPPER VIK [04:18 PM]:**

_Congratulations on getting laid, first of all. :P To answer_

_your question: hard to say, but the general rule with_

_chemical control is the bigger the dose, the harder_

_the punch. Makes sense that a big one would knock_

_it back for a longer period of time._

Well, that answered that. Any relief that knowledge had brought, though, was quickly smashed at the next text.

**RIPPER VIK [04:20 PM]:**

_The further along you get in the half-life, the less_

_severe your symptoms_ should _be, but there is_

_a small chance you’ll have the opposite reaction,_

_go hard in the other direction until the heat burns_

_itself out inside ya. :(_

**RIPPER VIK [04:21 PM]:**

_So just be careful… and lemme know if you need_

_to borrow some restraints or some shit ;)_

**V [04:22 PM]:**

_Shut up, you gonk.:P (P.S. Thanks) :*_

Great. Just fuckin’ great.

\---

“Bye, River.” V tried to be as nonchalant as possible, considering she still didn’t have any pants on. 

“See ya around, V.” He gave her a wistful sort of grin as the door slid closed, the kind that told her he knew he wouldn’t, in fact, be seeing her around. Her head thunked heavily onto the metal, where she knocked it again for good measure as a self-imposed punishment for her foolishness. 

A blue flicker in the edges of her vision, and then a puff of digital smoke around her body that smelled like nothing. “Damn, V, this shit really makes you gonked in the head, huh?”

Twin birds flipped up, waving around wildly in all directions, considering she didn’t know exactly where Johnny had glitched into existence. She felt him duck away to her right and she turned to face him.

“I just thought I could get ahead of it this time.” 

“Oh, you did get a head, darlin’!” Johnny sounded so self-satisfied that she almost hauled off and tried to deck him. He wasn’t wrong and she hated that.

\---

_The itchiness had started a little while after her virtual consultation with Vik. V’s skin felt hot and prickly, and her lungs were tight, like she couldn’t catch a breath. Her wrists had begun to pulse._

_“Uh oh,” she had heard Johnny’s voice echo in her brain. “Blocker?” he asked, his words unmistakably forlorn._

_“Um.…” V stalled for no one in particular as she grudgingly stripped to get into the shower; her fourth in the last two days. She had begun to dread turning the water knob on and that first burst of cold from the showerhead. “No, no. I’ve got a plan. We’re gonna nip this in the bud.”_

_“Ha, get it? Bud? Like your clit?”_

_“Christ, Johnny, shut it.” Before he could formulate a response, V had pinged someone on her holo, yanking on the water and sticking herself headfirst into the spray, soaking her face and hair before her call was answered._

_“V? Hi.”_

_“Hey, River. How’ve you been?”_

“Sweet fuckin’ Santa Muerte herself,” she heard Johnny mutter from the other side of the shower wall.

_“I’m, you know, hangin’ in there….” A very pregnant pause, during which she watched his eyes, both organic and enhanced, fight to not glance downward. “Are you…in the shower?”_

_‘Oh! Yeah, does that bother you?” she asked in a tone that implied it was the most natural thing in the world to be calling him while naked and wet. She made a show of squeezing a little body wash into her palm and soaping up her neck, casting the line out for him to bite._

_River cleared his throat but was unable to hide the timber of want in his reply. “Not at all.”_

Got him.

_“Oh, good! Anyway, I had a free night for once in a fucking blue moon, and wanted to know if you wanted to split those beers with me like you promised. I just picked up a pretty good sampler pack.”_

_“Shoot me your address. I’ll be over ASAP.”_

_“Goody.” She winked into the holo. “Sending now. See you soon!” V cut the call before he had a chance to reply, immediately rinsing and shutting off the water. She stuck her hand around the partition, groping for the drawer pull to where her underwear were stuffed, her fingers bumping into the hard bone of Johnny’s knee. His hand snatched hers up, nearly pulling her from behind the wall._

_“V, what in the Devil’s actual Hell is going on right now?” She felt her arm twist. “Your pokes ain't even that fuckin’ pink, you can’t be_ that _desperate.”_

_She sighed impatiently. “I’m not, chuckle-fuck, but he is. It’s preventative medicine.” She wiggled her fingers in his grasp, her waning tolerance making her reckless with her words. “I won’t even take a blocker and you can watch for all I care. Now please help me find my undies.”_

_Silence. She flexed her wrist again, tsking under her breath, and she felt Johnny slowly move her hand over and slightly down so she could grasp the drawer pull and slide it open. The surprise came when he continued to guide her fingers over the scraps of cotton and lace jumbled together in a delicate pile. She felt him press her palm down gently on top of something smooth combined with small metal pieces, and he forced her hand to curl around it._

_“Wear these, then.” The pressure on her wrist disappeared and she yanked her hand back around the partition to see his selected treasure; it could be called a strappy thong, although that was being generous. Lengths of elastic stretched from a silky black front panel around to a complicated web of more elastic and delicate silver rings, tapering down into what was little more than a decorative ribbon to connect the front. V’s mouth dropped open slightly; she forgot she even owned these, let alone the last person she had donned them for._

_When she poked her head around the wall, Johnny was gone._

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback welcome and appreciated. :D
> 
> You know that phase after your favorite band puts out a solid first and second albums where they get a little experimental, maybe dip into something a little outside their wheelhouse? You don't not like it, but you gotta squint at it a little and appreciate it for what it is?
> 
> We are entering that phase here. Cybersmut equivalent to remixes and B-sides coming right up - put on your openminded hats! :D


	8. Johnny's Interference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things that also did not go how I planned: this! xD I might just stop planning and really fly it by the seat of my pants from here on out.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Put It On Me," Matt Maeson

Christ alive; V couldn’t remember having bombed harder. 

She had answered the door in her shredded Samurai tank and shorts that left little to the imagination, hair fluffed around her face in that “effortless” way that actually takes 20 minutes to get right. Johnny had been uncharacteristically quiet since their little wardrobe selection adventure, reclined on the couch with his arms outstretched on the ledge like he was in the middle of a bar booth full of giggling groupies, just… _watching_ her get ready; “Looking good, doll,” he had offered as the door intercom pinged. V hadn’t missed how his tactical vest had been left out in cyberspace, leaving him just in his tank top (a near match to her own), dog tags and pants.

It had been a mildly awkward evening thus far: the Heat wasn’t so active in her system for V to not be annoyed by how goddamn _nice_ River was, smiling kindly at her as they shot the shit about nothing in particular. V had casually swept her hair away from her neck at some point, showing off the long column of her throat; she had stretched casually, lengthening her body sensually in front of him; she had worked her way from a respectable seated distance to pressed flush against his body in the crook of his extended arm. She was close to standing and stripping for him, but something told her that might scare him off.

She had not shown him the video she recorded at Vik’s.

When the conversation stilted again, she felt River’s hand close around her naked thigh. “V,” he murmured lowly.

 _“About fuckin’ time.”_ Johnny voiced her thoughts for her.

“Yeah?” She turned her face up to River, shifting to face him and forcing his hand further up her leg. His mouth was hovering above hers, about to offer a gesture of affection V wasn’t after. Her skin was prickling hotly, dying for his grip on her to turn to steel. 

He went to close the gap between them; V maneuvered quickly, her lips brushing his cheek and forcing his to do the same to her own. She kept working, trailing open-mouthed kisses along his jaw to his ear, a nip at his earlobe, finally earning a groan from him. The noise echoed through her skull and radiated down between her legs. _I can work with that,_ she encouraged herself. 

She set her mouth to work, licking and nipping down down his neck to his collarbone. “V, wait,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. His hands had taken up smoothing themselves over her shoulders, down her arms and up again; it was so _gentle_ she wanted to gag.

“Don’t you want me to touch you, River?” She whispered, her hands pressed against his chest as she swung one leg around, straddling one of his muscular thighs. He had only sighed in response. The pressure of his leg sent a jolt into her clit and she grunted slightly, shifting her hips to try for a repeat. 

_“Fuckin’ gonk pig’s gonna need more instruction than that.”_ Her eyes flitted over to Johnny’s spot on the couch; he had a sour expression on his face that matched her internal monologue perfectly. One hand had crept its way onto his crotch, and he was casually palming himself. He felt her surprise more than saw it and shrugged. _“You said I could watch. Didn’t say anything about what I did while I watched.”_ That was true. V found she didn’t care all that much. Somebody should have a good time if it wasn’t gonna be her.

 _Right, then. Let’s kick this up a notch._ She stood, watching River’s face become dumbfounded as she slipped out of her shorts. The lingerie—because that’s really what it was—that Johnny had picked stretched seductively around the curves of V’s hips and low back in a spider’s web of straps and fastening. It also camouflaged the last of the lingering bruises on her pelvis, and she was grateful. She sank back down onto River’s thigh, her hands making quick work of the button and zipper on his pants. She paused for the briefest of moments. “Is this okay?” His head nodded frantically, one arm coming to wrap around her middle delicately. So fucking soft, _still._ V shifted impatiently and plunged her hand under the waistband of his boxers, wrapping her palm around his warm length. It wasn’t small, she’d give him that; any man with the confidence to wear a jacket like his had to be working with some BDE.

She pumped her hand experimentally, up and down the length of him once before squeezing her fingers just underneath the ridge of his head. She felt his body tremble beneath her, but heard a distinct groan come from somewhere else. Her heart jumped in her throat as she turned her head as casually as possible, under the guise of resting it on River’s shoulder, towards the ghost at the other end of the couch.

Johnny’s hand was in his pants, moving perfectly in sync with her own. His head had tipped back and his mouth was slightly ajar. The sight pushed a bolt of heat into V’s loins, her own lips parting with surprise. Her hips rocked against the strong thigh beneath them as her hand closed around River’s cock again, tugging up and down, locked in on the way Johnny’s wrist mirrored her movements.

 _“Just like that, kitten.”_ Fucking _hell,_ did he know how hot calling her that right now was?

There was a noise—”V, wait, wait”—and a touch—a hand closing around her moving wrist to still it around the head of his member—that wrenched her attention back to the man that was physically in front of her. River’s brows were furrowed and a sheen of perspiration had formed across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

“What’s the matter, River?” His mouth opened to give her an answer, but V would never hear it; instead, she felt his fingers move experimentally across the wrist he had grabbed, and then he pulled it away from himself and out of his pants, bringing it to his face to examine.

Her wound had swelled again, although not nearly as extreme as they had in the past ( _which was the whole fucking point of this_ , V thought irritatedly). The pink swirls were just beginning to spread.

“V? Are you…are you drugged?” Of course. River was a cop; he had surely seen his share of Heat out there in the world. Of fucking course he would connect the dots.

V struggled to keep it casual, pulling her hand away and raking it through her hair. “No, no, not really! It happened a while ago, I don’t think there’s anything left in—”

“It doesn’t turn pink if there’s nothing left.” He wasn’t having it. He had already tucked himself back into his pants and fastened them by the time V had gotten the hint and stood, releasing his thigh from between hers.

River stood and shrugged his coat on without saying a word. _Alright, this feels shitty._ “River, I’m…you know it makes you do crazy things,” she offered lamely. “Not that you’re a crazy thing! Ah, shit. You know what I mean.” Her face blushed hot. “Sorry.”

He blew out a heavy sigh as she followed him to the door, shorts forgotten in the embarrassment of being caught out. “It’s…fine, V. But if we’re gonna do this, I don’t want you to be…not yourself.”

A snort of cruel laughter from the couch. _“Ha! If he fuckin’ knew.”_

She did her best to smile in what she hoped looked like graceful understanding. “I get it, River. I do. My bad.”

The door slid open and he stepped outside without saying anything.

“Bye, River.”

“See you around, V.”

\---

The beer bottle bounced and shattered into the alcove underneath V’s microwave. She was “cleaning up” by shuffling things roughly into piles and throwing things too hard into the trash bin, growing more agitated by the second. 

“Motherfucker!” A whip of arousal curled through her core and she cried out, grabbing the counter for support with one hand, the other coming up to her cunt and grabbing a hold of it like she could stop the feeling if she just squeezed it hard enough.

She was angry with herself for being an idiot, angry at whoever first invented Heat for being an evil madman, and angry at Night City for being such a meat grinder of a place to live life—which meant she was so turned on she could barely see straight.

“This is some preem rock star behavior, V. If you had an axe, I’d tell ya to smash it.” The amusement in Johnny’s voice was enough to wrench a frustrated scream from her lips, sending the last beer bottle flying directly at his head. It sailed through him and smashed against the opposite wall where he leaned, his cocky smirk unchanging as he puffed on his never-ending cigarette.

“And fuck you too, with all your ‘kitten’ shit!” Another arrow of desire flew into her groin, making her already-shaky legs buckle, sending her knees into the floor. Tiny fragments of broken glass created sharp pin pricks of pain on the hard bones there. “I was trying to be nice, letting you stay, and you fucking ruined it, and now I’m fucking dying!” She wasn’t sure if she had meant that figuratively or literally. Both were true. Her skin was burning up. The pink tendrils of the drug had worked themselves halfway up her arms. Her hand clenched harder around her core, tight to the point of pain. She needed release so desperately, but Johnny was _right there_ and damn if she was going to give him the satisfaction of that show now, even if her squirming and groaning on the floor in his band’s t-shirt and panties he’d picked out was a pretty revealing preview.

He was in front of her in an instant then, aviators pushed up on his face so his dark eyes could pierce hers. “I tried to tell you that a barbeque was a bad idea,” he said calmly, his voice a stark contrast to the painful grip he suddenly had in her hair. “But since when do you ever fuckin’ listen to me?” V’s face was pressed against his thigh, mouth inches from his undone zipper, the distance closing slowly as she watched the bulge in his pants grow right in front of her eyes.

She looked up at him from beneath wet lashes, tears of frustration making her optics shine like glass. He stared back, watching the whirlpool of red fog he could see in her and feel with her. 

They stayed like that for several long moments, both buzzing with the inevitability of what was coming next. V’s hand left her cunt to tug at the hem of her tank top, which was soaked damp enough with sweat that it stuck to her body. “I want to take this off,” she said to Johnny.

“Too fuckin’ bad, kitten,” he relished the word on his tongue, feeling V’s flood of arousal distantly in his own body. His free hand pushed down on his pants, pulling the elastic waistband down underneath his balls to free his member, which was painfully hard, veins visible and pulsing gently with his heartbeat. “I want you wearing it when you suck my cock dry.” _Sweet Christ. BDE indeed_ , she thought hazily. Her mouth had fallen open unbidden, tongue working along the edge of her lips; his hand wrapped around the base of his erection, offering her a treat sweeter than synthchocolate. 

“Fuckin’ get to it.” Johnny gave her head a little rattle with his hand in her hair and gave her cheek a slap with his warm, silky length. V’s eyelids fluttered, and she listened. She wasted no time sliding her tongue along his length, letting saliva pool before she closed her hot mouth around him, working her nose down to brush against his pelvis quickly. It earned her a choked grunt, and she could see Johnny’s hand reach back to steady himself on the ledge by the computer.

“Hnngh—what a good fuckin’ girl,” he panted out, the praise enough to send V’s hand flying into her panties, moaning shamelessly around his length as her fingers plunged between her folds to frantically work at her clit. She could feel her own wet mouth; Johnny could feel the pressure of her digits at her center. This wasn’t going to last long.

V groaned again, the noise a phantom vibration in her system and a real one in his. She slid the entirety of him out of her mouth before plunging down again, his hand on her head encouraging an enthusiastic rhythm. Johnny’s head had tipped back towards the ceiling, shoulders heaving with heavy breaths. He felt her body shake beneath him, felt the tremble of her lips on his cock, and barely managed to yank his head back down to watch her quivering on the edge of orgasm, face flushed and sweaty with effort. “C-come for me, kitten, c’mon—”

His words flipped her switch. She yelped, the noise muffled with her mouth still full of him; her insides clenched hard around nothing as a star of blinding ecstasy inside her imploded, forcing her whole torso to seize up, stiff as a board. Her eyes rolled back into her head and Johnny snapped.

With a wet sucking sound, he pulled his length from her mouth, fingers coming to close around himself and pumping once, twice, three times and holding fast as his orgasm shattered from him. “Hnnn—s-so beautiful, V—fuckin’ gorgeous—mine,” Johnny panted out, as strands of thick, blue-tinted come arched into V’s mouth, across her neck, and her chest where the word _Samurai_ could clearly be seen.

It wasn’t real, of course, but it _felt_ hot as it hit her skin, and V closed her lips, trying to swallow. Nothing, She reached up and tried to smear it across her collarbone, but her hand came away clean. 

They stayed like that, V panting on the floor and Johnny wheezing against the countertop, for several long minutes. At some point, his pants had glitched closed, and the press of glass into her knees had become unbearable. He disappeared then, only for her to feel him gently hauling her upward to standing, arm wrapped around her to hold her steady on noodle legs. 

“C’mon, doll. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! :D Comments and constructive feedback welcome.
> 
> FancyLadySnackCakes posted an update to "Dying Makes One Dumb" yesterday (if you haven't read it, are you really even reading Cyberpunk fan fiction?) and it has me rethinking literally EVERYTHING about writing Dum Dum or any of the rest of these chapters. It is SO brilliant. I have a LOT TO THINK ABOUT. xD


	9. The Acquaintance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to more talking! xD We got very squishy with some details in here, don't look too hard. 
> 
> Recommended listening: "Blood in the Cut," K.Flay

_ Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. FUCK. _

V ejected the magazine on her DB5, checked the bullets for the 30th time, and put it back in again. She ejected the clip on Lizzie (she had gone back to using her after the industrial park, and sometimes looking at it made her mouth go dry when she thought about how that camera met its end), pulled the rack back for the 50th time, and reassembled her. She slid her mantis blades out from her arms, debated switching their augmentation from electrical to physical, decided against it, and retracted them. She quadruple-checked the buckles on her knife holsters. 

She had been hiding in the armory from Johnny all morning in case he poked through the red curtain. She had woken up that morning with his taste on her tongue and a panic deep in her chest, and taken two pills immediately, feeling guilty about it when she did. She had sucked off an engram. That shouldn’t even be possible; technology was really wild, wasn’t it? She had touched herself while she had done it, in the panties he’d chosen for her. Sure, she had been gonked out of her brain with Heat, but  _ Johnny  _ hadn’t been. And she  _ hadn’t _ been that far gone when he had called her “kitten” on the couch while stroking himself to her on River’s lap and she had just about creamed herself. Maybe the Heat had fucked her up in ways Vik didn’t know about. A small voice in the back of her already-crowded brain told V  _ that isn’t true and you know it _ . 

_ Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all his damn carpenter friends.  _ She shoved several more red and blue blockers into the pocket of her pants. She didn’t have time to be thinking about this while she was gallivanting out in the desert with Panam. She hoped the whistling winds of the desert would be enough to drown out these persistent thoughts of what might have happened if River hadn’t been there at all.

_ Shut up, shut up! _

\---

“Saul  _ Bright?  _ Christ, Panam, you didn’t mention that the guy in charge used to be a Bakker!”

V’s friend tilted her head in confusion. “Was that important to know?”

V massaged her temples as the van bumped and skidded over the sandy terrain. “Yes! I mean, no, but …yes! Yes, that would have been good to know!”

“Why?”

“I  _ know  _ him, Panam. We were…um…”

“Fuck buddies?” A cheeky grin. V shoved her driver’s shoulder hard enough that the van swerved, narrowly missing a massive tumbleweed. 

“— _ acquaintances  _ for a brief time.” 

“Uh huh,” Panam nodded knowingly, swinging the van to a halt on a rocky outcropping. “He’ll be happy to see you, then.”

V shoved her hands into her hair, giving it a hard ruffle, trying to shake this new information out of her mind. V shoved herself out of the front seat, and crouched just off the edge of the outcropping, visually confirming what she had seen from Mitch’s drone footage.

“Okay, I’ll cover you from here.”

“Pan?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re my choom, but sometimes you suck.”

“Yep. Good luck in there.”

\---

It had started in that disgusting cellar. 

V had spent the whole time she was picking off Raffen Shiv as she made her way through the camp thinking about how she was gonna play this.  _ Professional? Friendly? He might not even remember me. I managed to sneak off after the convoy gig without having to see him. I can’t believe Pan didn’t tell me then. Gonk. _

“I think I’ve got eyes on him, Pan.”

“Stop ogling and get him outta there!” 

V crept down the creaky metal stairs, and she heard his rumbly baritone before she had stepped out of the shadows.

“D’you…do you have my goddamn cigar? I said a cigar, and some whiskey, and some ladies to keep me company.”

V hadn’t met many people with a smarter mouth than hers. She grinned as she remembered that Saul was one of them. She moved into the dingy basement light. “Can only do one of those three for you, choom, I’m sorry.”

His head craned upward slowly. “Who’re you…fuck, is that _ V _ ?”

“Hey, Saul. Let me hit you with this JetPack, okay? I got a few on the way in, but we’ll probably have to shoot our way out of here.” She punched the booster into his chest without any further warning. He groaned and his hand jumped up, grabbing her wrist in a crushing grip purely out of instinct. V winced in pain and felt the pilot light in her belly roar to life.

_ Ugh. So that’s how the rest of today was going to be. Fuckin’ preem.  _

He released her once he realized what he had done. “Mmm…sorry, that shit is good! Time to don my dancing shoes!”

She vaguely recalled him being one of the only people to make her roll her eyes so hard; good to know that some things never changed. She clasped his forearm, helping haul him to his feet. “C’mon, you gonk. It’s good to see you.”

He grabbed whatever gun was closest to him. “Good to see you too, pretty. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

She had forgotten he used to call her that. Her cheeks flushed as she told Panam to get ready for them to come out. Her shit-eating reply was almost drowned out in a hail of gunfire as two Shivs busted through the door.

“On my way,  _ pretty. _ ”

\---

He would not stop goddamn  _ staring  _ at her. V had been throbbing under the weight of his gaze since they jumped into the van opposite each other and Pan had gunned it to outrace the dust storm. Even as they had swung open the doors to defend themselves from their Wraith pursuers, backs pressed together for stability, she had felt as though he had eyes on her. It was probably a combo of the JetPack and adrenaline, but his energy was absolutely  _ feral. _

She sank onto the couch of the little farm they had paused at to seek shelter from the howling winds and swirling dust, covered in a fine layer of it from fixing the electric in the house. Pan had stretched sat beside her and stretched her legs out across V’s lap to lounge comfortably.

“V?”

V started awake, looking around sheepishly. The comedown from the mission had been rough, considering she hadn’t come. She felt flushed and hypersensitive, having shrugged out of her nasty jacket as soon as she had come back in from fixing the outdoor fuse, leaving a ragged tank top and pants. The fire had felt almost unbearably hot, and she had curled away from it, resting her head on her hand, tuning out Saul and Panam’s squabbling.

“Hey, I’m here, what’s up, what’s happening?”

Panam snorted out a laugh. “Past your bedtime?” V didn’t dignify it with a response. 

“I wouldn’t mind catching a few winks myself,” said Saul, grunting as he pushed himself out of the chair, moving stiffly now that the adrenaline had worn off. He offered a friendly “Fuck off” to Pan’s offer of help and shuffled off down the hall with a last lingering look in V’s direction.

V did her best to hide the shiver it sent up her spine and went to curl up again, but started at the feeling of Panam’s boot kicking her, not unkindly, square in the ass. 

“If you do not get in there right now, he will be so goddamn  _ unbearable  _ tomorrow morning.”

“Pan, that’s fuckin’ weird, you’re right here, and he probably doesn’t even—”

“I’m about to be so fast asleep a Militech raid wouldn’t wake me, and you’ve been wet for him since that basement. Weirdo.” V blinked. Panam was very astute. 

She felt another nudge, harder this time, of Panam’s boot. V held her hands up in surrender and stood. “Christ, Pan, alright, but you better make room for me when I come back out in a couple minutes.”

“Uh huh.” Fuck, she was smug. 

V took her boots off by the door, tipping each and watching the sand drain out like the world’s wonkiest hourglass, and padded down the hall on bare feet. The house was small, but the master bedroom was tucked in the very back corner, affording the tiniest sliver of privacy. Thank fuck for small mercies. 

V took a shaky breath and rapped on the door with her knuckles. “Saul? You’re sure you don’t need any help?” Nothing, and then, before V could even begin to react, the door swung open, Saul yanked her into the room, pushed the door closed and  _ slammed _ V up against it. His hand was heavy on her collarbone as he pressed her into the wood, his breath hot in her ear; she felt a sharp nip on the lobe and couldn’t suppress a squeal.

“If you don’t take these fuckin’ clothes off and get on the bed right now, I’ll do it for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :D Comments and constructive feedback always welcomed.
> 
> Fellow Saul THOTs, welcome! You are among your people!


	10. Saul's Command

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My Apple Watch told me my heart rate was high while I wrote this ... so that's something. xD
> 
> If you only listen to one of my suggested songs, please make it this one: "You Are The Wilderness," Voxhaul Broadcast

He was a fire, and V was so eager to be consumed.

His lips were on her throat before she even had time to consider complying with his demand to disrobe, leaving a lava flow of molten kisses in his path. His head replaced his hand on her chest, laving her collarbone before scraping his teeth against it. V hissed, shaking hands covering his at her waist and helping to undo the buttons and zipper there, if only because she liked these pants and didn’t want them ripped off her body. 

Saul shoved the garment and her panties down roughly over her hips and further, crouching to help her step out of them and tossing them aside. His tongue gilded lightly up one of her calves, biting at the sensitive skin on the side of her knee and making V yelp again. His mouth was too hot, too wet; her skin was too tingly, too sensitive; she could feel every brush of the atoms in the air around him as he continued grazing up her thigh before unceremoniously burying his face into the apex of her thighs and taking a deep, shuddering breath. V’s head spun.

“Ah, _fuck_ , Saul—wait—” She grabbed two handfuls of dark hair and yanked. He rose with a grunt. “I’ve gotta tell you something.” Even as she spoke, her hands were fumbling at the buckles of his leather cummerbund, allowing his fingers to take over work they were familiar with and shucking her tank top over her head to join her pants somewhere in the great beyond of the tiny bedroom. 

His tank top flew off and V had precious moments to admire the broad slope of his shoulders, his sculpted chest, the tattoos littered across it and his upper arms, and the trail of dark hair under his belly button that disappeared into the waistband of his trousers, then she was flush against the door again, his naked torso pressed to hers, melting her down like so much metal. 

“What is it, pretty?” His lips caressed the shell of her ear. “I wanna feel you from the inside.”

V went to beam him her video from Vik’s clinic and groaned when she realized she couldn’t; Saul was completely organic. “Oh, dammit.” Her hand rubbed across her eyes in frustration and she felt Saul go still.

“Whoa. V…your hand…” She looked. Every visible vein was tinged with pink, lacing though every surface all the way up to her elbow. A quick peek at her other hand revealed a similar situation. Now that he wasn’t expanding her understanding of the universe with his mouth, she could feel the steady, hot pulse emanating from her wrists. _Well, that’s as good an opening as any._

“It’s about that. It’s this drug, it’s called Heat. I got stuck with it at a club about a week ago.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna make it.” _An enormous lie, technically._ “It just, uh,” _No reason to mince words with this guy._ “It makes me hella horny and stupid. It’s a roofie.”

His eyes narrowed, one arm snaking through the space between the small of her back and the door to keep her pressed against him. “A roofie? Did someone do something to you?”

“No, no! I kneed his junk back inside his body before anything could happen, but he had already got me with it. I just…wanted to tell you.”

Saul took a moment to really study V’s face then, as her hands came back to rest gingerly on his flexed biceps. Her hair was wild around her face, blustery from the dust storm. Her eyes were wide and pupils dark, and she was sucking in shallow breaths through her nose. He pushed her hair back from her face with his fingers, moving his mouth back to her neck with a modicum of more control than before. “Do you want to stop?” He rasped out between hot, airy kisses. His hand left her face to wander down her side and come to rest on her mound. He didn’t even need to venture inside to know how wrecked she was; he could feel her arousal slippery on her thighs.

He pushed his mouth against her ear again and relished the full-body shiver she gave up for him. “Because I think you’d be this fucking soaked for me even if you weren’t under the influence.”

 _Sweet Christ, he wasn’t wrong._ V tilted her own head then, capturing his earlobe between her teeth in a tiny dose of his own medicine. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.” She bit down. Hard.

Saul growled like an animal, physically lifting her up, swiveling to walk a few steps, and depositing her on the bed like property to be claimed. V scrambled backwards on her elbows as he made quick work of his pants, leaving him naked and glowering in front of her, his erection straining upward into the air as the wind outside howled around the tiny cabin. She tried to swallow and found her mouth dry as a bone. She understood why the Aldecaldos would have promoted him so quickly after accepting him into the family: he was pragmatic, loyal, resourceful, smart. But here, now, as he crawled up the bed toward her, his form slowly creating a shadow on the mattress, she understood on another level: he was fierce, powerful, a barely-restrained force of nature. She would fucking follow him anywhere if he asked her right now, so when he paused his pursuit of her to make a demand, she complied without realizing.

“Open your legs.”

V’s knees fell wide, leaving her glistening and exposed before him. He hummed his approval lowly and her already-flushed cheeks colored even further, the warmth creeping down her neck onto her chest. He knelt then, curling in on himself until his mouth was hovering just above her cunt. He looked up along her body at her face; she felt his hands slide around her thighs and clamp down, leaving her hopelessly bound by his grip on her.

She wasn’t one for begging, but she thought she might actually be dying. “Saul, do something, _goddammit,_ ” trying to rock her hips up into his mouth. 

He didn’t move a muscle. “Touch your tits.”

Her hands flew to her breasts, a soldier of lust following orders of desire. Her nipples were already hard, and she teased and pinched at them until her breath was coming out in whiny huffs. Her eyes had fluttered closed, and it was only then that he surprised her with his burning mouth, pressing in and sucking her clit between his lips with no amount of gentleness.

V cried out, one hand pressing over her mouth to muffle the noise. The other threaded itself into his hair again, yanking him against her hard enough that she felt his fingers curl into the flesh of her thighs painfully. It did not deter her from grinding against his mouth with wanton abandon as he flicked his tongue against her nub just off to the right, like he _remembered_ that spot drove her fucking crazy. 

It still did. 

Her hips arched up off the bed involuntarily, and Saul’s hands slid under her ass to hold her there like he had fucking known what she was going to do. Maybe she was being obvious; hell if she could tell. All she knew was the press of his mouth on her, the stars in her eyes shooting trails of red rocket dust after them, and then his _teeth_ scraping along her clit at the same time she felt two thick fingers plunge into her waiting walls. Her thighs clamped down around his head then, as he coaxed her orgasm out of her with another rough suck of his lips and curl of his digits.

Her whole body quaked as she wailed into her hand, tensing with pleasure so exquisite it might have been pain, only able to open herself up again when Saul physically pushed her legs apart to free himself, surfacing for air with a look of pure, maniacal _need_ on his face. He flipped her roughly onto her stomach, stretching his frame out over hers and sinking himself into her before her walls had stopped fluttering from her release.

She heard him growl out a “ _Fucking hell”_ before beginning to move inside her, neither soft or slow with his thrusts. V keened from the overwhelming physical sensation, her fingers desperately grappling for his hands and curling them together as he pressed her into the mattress.

“You’re so fucking tight, V,” he snarled into her ear. “Still take cock like a champion.” She could only pant in reply, having lost the capacity for speech some time ago. She felt disconnected from her body, floating on an ethereal plane where only Saul existed, claiming her endlessly as she rocked on a sea of ceaseless pleasure. She was vaguely aware of him untangling a hand from hers and snaking it down the front of her body, before she was snapped back into existence by the press of his fingers against her throbbing bundle of nerves.

“Saul!” she yelped, the sensations sharpening and tightening her body to hover on the precipice again.

“Scream that when you come and I’ll fill you up with mine,” it was almost a whisper, snaking through her brains straight to her groin, and she groaned, bucking against him frantically. She could feel his rhythm growing more erratic, his breath huffing into her ear.

His teeth sank into the back of her neck, his fingers pinched her clit—and she was done. A second climax ripped through her, leaving her a trembling mess of tears beneath him, sobbing out his name again and again like a benediction. His hips thrust desperately, and he choked out a “V” before roaring out his finish, his hand underneath her pressing her up against him as he ground his release into her.

They melted into the mattress together, his weight on top of her a crushing blanket she never wanted to escape from as they caught their breath. She knew without looking that the Heat had withdrawn; her mind was so open, she felt ready to do advanced calculus, chart a course for a new spacecraft, and commune with the Devil. Maybe he had opened her Third Eye. 

“Saul.”

“Hm, pretty?”

“Off.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” He rolled away from her with great effort, groaning from the day’s collected exertions on his body.

V felt a pang of guilt. “You’re gonna feel so wrecked tomorrow.”

One eye fluttered open to look at her; she didn’t know how he managed to look so smug by just doing that. “Yeah, but now so are you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome. :D
> 
> If there is even one new Saul THOT after this, I have done my duty well. He's got a MOUTH on him. xD


	11. The Argument

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hear ye, hear ye: Johnny is a dick. 
> 
> That is all. xD
> 
> Suggested listening: "Do I Wanna Know?", Arctic Monkeys

_V woke early in the morning with Saul’s head between her legs again. The storm had died down, and the only sounds in the room were the shifting of bodies, her soft sighs, and the quiet smacks of his mouth’s attention._ A girl could get used to this _, she thought hazily, but the smile that stretched across her mouth as she came dropped promptly when her eyes slowly opened to Johnny in a chair in the corner, sucking in air through his cigarette and breathing out clouds of rage—a stark reminder of why her time in this room would be as brief as it was fantastical. It was only with great difficulty that she resisted the urge to kiss Saul’s mouth clean of her and beg for more._

\---

“V. Don’t.” 

They were the first words Johnny had spoken to her since his appearance. She was fingering the red and blue blockers tucked in her pants absentmindedly as she got dressed, not _really_ thinking about taking them beyond the part of her morning routine they had become. There was no venom or anger in the words, but they sat heavy in the hair with the weight of things unsaid. She pulled her hand out of the pocket without looking at him. “Okay.”

She stepped outside the cabin into the blinding morning sun, squinting her eyes at the figure on the stairs until it came into focus: Panam, with the world’s biggest smirk on her face.

“Not one goddamn word, you. It was a creature of your own design.”

Her friend, never one for following instructions, raised her hands in faux conciliation as she stood up and walked off the steps. “Sure _sounded_ like a creature, anyway.” 

“Pan! What did I just say?”

Another shit-eating grin. “C’mon, your compensation is over here.” She walked towards the motorcycles in the distance; the Aldecaldos that had come to meet them had been kind enough to bring Scorpion’s bike along for V. 

V waved in response to Casidy’s cheerful greeting, not venturing any further toward the van where the others had grouped around Saul, who was perched on the edge of the cargo bay. She knew he was watching her, even with the sun’s rays blocking her vision. She raised her hand for a goodbye finger wiggle, trying to keep things casual, and started to follow Panam. 

There was the creak of the van’s suspension and a thud of some footsteps behind her; a moment later, Saul caught her around the front of her waist, standing not behind her but to her side, so it wouldn’t look like anything other than him standing too close to the people behind them.

“Stay?” His breath warmed her hair when he spoke.

 _Jesus Christ_ , this was hard, and then it got harder: Johnny’s engram glitched directly in front of V, fixing her with a thousand-yard stare as Saul worked his fingertips under the hem of her top to touch her skin one last time. 

“I can’t.”

“Why?” She wasn’t sure who sounded more disappointed.

“I’ve got…some pressing shit I’ve gotta deal with.” _Like the personality construct of a dead rockerboy terrorist conducting a hostile takeover of my meatsack. And some laundry._

To his credit, Saul didn’t fight her on it. “Okay.” His hand pulled away from her, pausing for the briefest of seconds to give the tiny braid that started behind her ear a gentle tug; V knew he sported a twin in his own locks, had felt it in her hands at some point last night. _Once a Bakker, always a Bakker._ “See you, pretty.” V stepped away from him, forward towards Panam, and he turned back towards the van. 

She really hoped that was the most difficult thing she had to do today.

\---

“V?”

“Yeah?” Of course he would choose to have this mental conversation now, as she wove her motorcycle in and out of traffic, roads growing more congested the closer she got to Night City. Johnny had not glitched away as she crawled astride Scorpion’s bike; instead, he had swung a leg up to mount up behind her, ignoring the way her new sniper rifle was slung across her back and pressing up against her, gripping her waist tightly like he would actually fly off the bike if she crashed. His fingertips dug into her flesh and it obviously wasn’t for safety; it didn’t feel particularly friendly, either.

“Those pills are fuckin’ gonked. ‘S like being in Mikoshi again when you take two.”

She had not expected such a frank confession from him. She tried to fight off feeling guilty about her self-preservation and failed, although her bold statement so many days ago about not giving two fucks about what the pills did to him rattled in her brain.. “I don’t want that for you, Johnny, but the Heat is definitely getting stronger as it works its way out, not the other way around. It was all in my hands and up to my elbows last night, remember?”

“No, I don’t fuckin’ remember, I wasn’t there; that was your bootleg input.” _Christ on a bike._

“You really wanna do this now, huh?” She took a right corner particularly fast, leaning into it and whipping around at a speed that reflected her (their) bubbling emotions. 

“I mean, I get that you’re a bitch in heat right now, but—"

A jerk of the throttle to match her sudden pique of anger. “The fuck, Johnny?”

“—he’s ripped, sure, but I bet I could take him—"

“I doubt it, but why would you need to?” She was splitting lanes as they reached the south edge of Watson, maneuvering between cars in a concerted effort to have this ride over as soon as fucking possible.

“—I definitely have better hair, no contest, so I don’t know why you’d—”

The bike skidded to a stop inches from a bumper at the intersection by the parking garage, turning sharply to maneuver it up the ramp. V skidded to a halt inside the closest spot to the elevator, killing the engine. “Because he’s _not_ you, that’s the whole fucking point, Johnny!” She tore his engram arms away from her to dismount, stalking into the open elevator so quickly she was almost running, desperate to get away from this exchange.

He glitched into the car right next to her—not even giving her a moment’s respite. “No one is, doll, it’s not their fault.”

Oh, would you shut _up_ ?!” It had burst physically from her lips, and V was grateful she was alone. “Saul and I come from the same family, I know what he’s about, he takes care of his people. Things are _simple_ with him, which no one has ever fuckin’ said about your terrorist ass!”

She could feel her heart pounding in her throat, but she was blessedly free from the throbbing arousal that had come with her anger as of late. Just like with Goro, her encounter with Saul seemed to have exhausted the drug’s effects. “Saul cares about me and I’m sorry if it rubs you the wrong way, but last I checked this is still my fucking life until you kill me or we figure out an alternative.”

V charged off the elevator and down the hall with one goal in mind: get to her place and get into the shower. She was filthy from her desert outing, yes, but she also knew Johnny wouldn’t follow her in there. He’d barely been back in her head for a few hours and she was already raring for a break.

She slid the door of her place shut with a resounding slam after getting in, pretending it would stop him from following. He walked right through it. 

“And who says I don’t care about you?”

V swung Panam’s rifle off of her and yanked off her boots angrily. “You tried to kill me, you gonk.” Her jacket quickly followed. 

“I said I was sorry about that!” Johnny protested, unable to tear his eyes away as she stripped angrily in front of him. The last thing he should be right now is turned on, but he found himself compelled to shrug out of his flak jacket and kick his boots off. “It’s not just anyone I call a ‘good girl’ and ‘gorgeous’ when they’re suckin’ me off.” _Man, that sounded like a much stronger argument in my head._

V snorted in disbelief as she shimmied out of her pants, still not looking at him. “Did you hear yourself just now?” 

‘Yes, _Christ,_ okay—” He pulled off his tank top as she doffed hers, cheating a little to glitch his pants away in time for her to turn around to find him just as naked as she was, stripped down to their skivvies, save Johnny’s dog tags and aviators. “Fine, it’s not just any chick I _put to bed_ after they’re done havin’ a fuckin’ drug-induced sexual _episode._ ” Now that was a valid point.

“What the hell?” She blinked at his naked form. Johnny was slim where Saul was broad, sinewy where Saul was bulky, scattered with scars that came to a head where the skin of his shoulder met the cold metal of his arm. They were very different from each other, but it was impossible for V to deny Johnny’s appeal, especially when she knew what lurked beneath the waistband of his boxers. He smirked as he felt her struggle to take her eyes off him.

“This is how you stop a fight with your output, darlin’. Just get naked.” His shit-eating grin was too much.

“I’m not your output, Johnny. Jesus.” She made a point of moving her hair away from her shoulder as she turned away from him toward the bathroom, revealing the angry purple bruise from Saul that had already manifested itself.

“If it’s about marks left, I can blow that one out of the water in about five minutes, _pretty._ ” His voice had pitched downward and he saw her stiffen at the sound of her pet name in his mouth.

“Or do you want to wait for the next round of Heat so you can pretend you need an excuse?”

V said nothing. She was trembling with anger at this _fucking program’s_ arrogance, insensitivity, and the audacity to call out what she was still wrestling with herself: she _would_ probably hit it without Heat’s influence. Her mind raced, grasping at straws to formulate retribution with the appropriate level of pettiness; the idea struck her with surprising clarity a moment later.

She marched back to where she had hung her jacket and fished her phone from its pocket, still refusing to look at Johnny as he tracked her movement across the room and back, the device disappearing with her into the shower. She could feel his confusion, but knew she was now off-limits as he saw her panties flutter out from the partition and heard the water jet on. 

_That definitely didn’t go like I fuckin’ thought,_ Johnny fumed to himself as he paced the floor, not bothering to glitch any clothes back on. He was lost in his thoughts when he heard a clatter on the porcelain sink; V had tossed her phone out from behind the shower wall. The screen was unlocked, the last messages she sent still readable. He knew it was a trap.

But Johnny Silverhand was a weak man sometimes. He glitched to hover above it. 

**[V 01:22 PM]:**

_Hey, Dum Dum, you up? It’s V, the merc with the style from All Foods._

**[DUMx2 01:22 PM]:**

_i remember u, soft n vicious_

**[V 01:23 PM]:**

_I’ve got a problem I think black lace will fix. You got the_

_hook-up for me?_

**[DUMx2 01:24 PM]:**

_lace will fix all ur problems_

**[DUMx2 01:24 PM]:**

_where and when_

**[V 01:25 PM]:**

_Think my “style” is good enough for Totentanz?_

_I’ve got options if you want to see ‘em._

**[DUMx2 01:26 PM]:**

_i sure fuckin do juicy_

**[V 01:26 PM]:**

_; )_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome! :D
> 
> OH SHIT DUMx2 BRIGADE, HERE WE GOOOOOOOO


	12. The Powder Keg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I would like to file a Formal Complaint about not being able to equip stockings to wear in-game. Look at some of these outfits! They scream for a fishnet! C'mon! -gets down off soapbox- Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Glory Box," Portishead

**[V 02:53 PM]:**

_You can’t mount a twin turbo on that small of_

_an engine block without adding a cold air intake,_

_unless you want it to explode the first time you hold_

_it at the redline for more than 3 secs._

**[V 02:54 PM]:**

_What are you, new here?_

**[DUMx2 02:55 PM]:**

_quit ur yappin and come help me install_

**[DUMx2 02:55 PM]:**

_wanna c u bent over it_

**[V 02:56 PM]:**

_I have enough work without doing yours too, tyvm : P_

V wasn’t sure how exactly she and Dum Dum discovered they had genuinely something in common. They had been texting since the genesis of her shower-wrought revenge on Johnny. One or two brief exchanges here or there; cars must have come up somehow. She had thought back to his raspy voice excitedly telling her about the Flathead’s technical features like the world’s most hardcore tech salesman, and V’s nomad life meant she knew her way around a bike or an automobile; she was no expert, but she could hold her own with most amateur mechanics. She had offered advice, and he had taken it, surprised.

Since then, things had gotten…forward. She had sent him a picture of her in some low-cut dress squiggled in neon as a litmus test for his interest; the response she had gotten (“ _not enough skin 2 bite, try again_ ”) had been a telling sign that her plan was executing itself perfectly.

The other telling sign was Johnny. V could sense that she was absolutely driving him up a wall with her antics ( _fuckin’ good_ , she thought). They had settled into an uncomfortable truce in the last few days while V took advantage of her clear head to knock out as many gigs as she could. She was hacking and seizing more these days, and it was an unspoken truth that her time was starting to run short. Between his guilt about that and the pangs of secondhand jealousy she could feel every time her phone pinged, whether it was Dum Dum or not, he was with her almost constantly now. They had even experimented with the amount of red pills she could take and keep him intact.

“So … half a pill is fine for you but not enough for me?” V confirmed.

“Yeah. But two pills fuckin’ packs me away like I’m a kidnapped body,” Johnny reminded her.

“How about one today and we’ll see how it goes?”

“Sure.” 

“Okay, bottoms up.” She chugged the coffee and downed the pill, feeling his fingers trace her throat as she swallowed. V huffed impatiently. In the last two wild weeks, they had gone from only touching once or twice _ever_ to his hands on her _constantly._ Most of them were innocent enough: he’d push her hair away from her face; he’d shove her shoulder playfully; he’d sling an arm around her as they walked the streets. Some were…not-so-innocent. She’d feel his hands skim over her hips as she was dressing; she’d feel his chin tucked onto her shoulder in the armory; he’d press up against her while she was brushing her teeth over the sink before bed. Those came after texting Dum-Dum, almost exclusively. ( _“better but where did ur tits go”_ had been the feedback on a tight leather miniskirt and a high-necked but completely backless shirt.)

The last thing V had energy for was another fight, so she said nothing and let him continue, willing her body to chill the fuck out with the automatic welcoming reactions. Johnny was definitely playing her game, but why hadn’t she set clearer rules?

\---

**[RIPPER VIK 09:11 PM]:**

Hey, Birdie. Doc’s checking in; you feeling yourself? : )

**[V 09:11 PM]:**

Hi, Vik. I think so. Head’s been real clear the past few days,

but the little pinpricks are still there. D:

**[RIPPER VIK 09:13 PM]:**

They’ll heal up when it’s all outta ya; you’ve gotta

be almost clean. 

**[V 09:14 PM]:**

About that…you know how you said synth 

chemicals might trigger it?

**[RIPPER VIK 09:15 PM]:**

Why do I not like where this is headed? >.>

**[V 09:15 PM]:**

I’m just asking for academic purposes! If it was dwindling

in my system, theoretically I could prompt a reaction

that might flush it the rest of the way out, right?

**[RIPPER VIK 09:17 PM]:**

ACADEMICALLY, yes, that would work, but there’d be

no way of knowing the strength of the reaction with

chemical augmentation. Which would make it

a PRETTY DUMB thing to do, Birdie. >.<

**[V 09:18 PM]:**

Vik! C’mon. You know me. : )

**[RIPPER VIK 09:19 PM]:**

I sure do, and that’s why I’m worried.

**[RIPPER VIK 09:19 PM]:**

Come by the clinic when you can and we’ll see if your

system is flushed the CORRECT way, with software.

Doc’s orders.

**[V 09:20 PM]:**

Will do, Vik! :*

\---

“V.” A cold metal hand slid across her middle as she felt Johnny glitch into her personal bubble behind her as she stood in panties in front of her closet. She was supposed to head to Totentanz in an hour and still had no idea what to wear. What had started as a joke had become a very tangible dilemma.

“Hm,” she replied distractedly, eyeing a cut-off jacket with ornamental spikes that she was pretty certain had come from a Maelstrom gig somewhere. She reached to pull it off the hanger and was stopped by Johnny’s other hand, curling around hers and twining their fingers together.

“You don’t really want us to go to that nasty Maelestrom dive.” He took their hands and touched her neck again, the sensation of double the touch stroking down her shoulders giving her an involuntary shiver. _Dammit._

Johnny felt his opportunity and seized it, burrowing his face into her hair to murmur in her ear. “Stay in, I’ve got all the metal you need, doll. This whole thing started by going out.”

 _Wrong move, Silverhand._ “Oh, yeah,” V’s voice was pure poison. “You mean when we went out because _you_ wanted to and I got drugged? That time?” She yanked her hand away and pulled the jacket out of the closet, spying a pair of leather hot pants with lace-up sides in the corner. _Damn, where did those even come from?_

“Jesus, V, what is your fuckin’ deal?” He glitched away from her as she turned to shove him, gesturing between them with his hands. “This is gonna happen sooner or later! I mean, we’re in the same body, for fuck’s sake—”

“That’s still MY body, to do with as I please, thank you!” V stepped into a pair of fishnet stockings, her bare breasts bouncing with the struggle of pulling them up. Johnny’s mouth went dry. Now she wasn’t fighting fair.

So he wouldn’t, either. He took a moment to strategize, watching V shrug a jacket over the bra she had put on and strap her knife to one thigh underneath the hem of her shorts. The minute he saw her reach for her phone for a picture (he _knew_ it was going to that gonk borg), he snapped into existence behind her again, grabbing a handful of her hair and tugging harshly, baring her throat for the camera. “G’on, then, send that chrome fucker a picture of you with what you _really want.”_ The shutter noise sounded, and the image that appeared on the screen was a sight: V with messy black eyeliner and her red lips slightly parted, chin tilted up to expose the expanse of chest, dusted with golden glitter, between the sides of the jacket down to her bra, and lower, her stockings and knife holster stretching to fill the rest of the frame. Johnny was nowhere to be seen in it. 

V felt like the air in the room could explode at any second; Johnny had put them directly in a powder keg of lust and emotion. “Let go of me, you psycho.”

“Not until you send it.” So she did.

**[V 10:01 PM]:**

_If this won’t do it, I’m fucked because I’m supposed to_

_be there in an hour_.

 **[DUMx2 10:02 PM]** :

_thats preem shit_

**[DUMx2 10:03 PM]:**

_lookin 4ward 2 rippin them off u_

**[V 10:03 PM]:**

_That a threat or a promise?_

**[DUMx2 10:04 PM]:**

_its both, soft n vicious_

Johnny released her hair roughly, sending her stumbling a couple steps as he disappeared and reappeared on the couch, puffing a cigarette like he was drinking water. “Fine. Fine! But you better take all those pills, darlin’, because I won’t fuckin’ delta otherwise, and I bet you don’t want an audience when you get stuffed with borg cock.”

V reached for her bottle; its rattle was far more empty than it had been. She tipped out the last two pills into her hand and faced him. “So one pill puts you behind the curtain? Where you can see and kinda talk, but can’t leave?” She tossed one of them back dry and swallowed hard, standing there while she waited for it to take effect. Her wrists had started tingling after he had pulled her hair.

He realized too late what was going to happen, just as he was starting to shimmer and shift in front of her vision. His voice was already distant. “V! Don’t you fucking dare, you evil cunt—”

The second pill hit the floor of the apartment and she ground it to dust under the heel of her boot. She watched him growl in anger, but could only feel a vague low hum in her brain. _Perfect._

V smiled serenely at him as she raised her phone to her mouth. “Voice text Dumx2: ‘I’ll get started on some holes for ya.’” A ding confirmed the message was sent a moment later. She slipped the phone in her jacket pocket, and leaned over to grip the thigh of one stocking in both hands, staring daggers at Johnny as she yanked a hole open in the netting. He said nothing, or V couldn’t hear it, at least—and that was just fucking fine with her.

She turned and left the powder keg for Totentanz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome. :D
> 
> V is petty and I think it's fuckin' great. That is all.


	13. The Dance Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -word vomits onto the page, posts on AO3 before even giving it a rough edit- 
> 
> Suggested listening: "Heart-Shaped Glasses," Marilyn Manson  
> Suggested watching: The blood rave scene from Blade on Youtube (easy to find, only a few minutes long); this is what I imagine Totentanz to be, just ... less wet. xD

“Totentanz, fuck yeah!” V’s elevator companion swayed on the spot as the doors creaked closed. “Hit the button, m’fingers are numb…”

His enthusiasm was weirdly charming and went a little way toward easing the anxious tightness in V’s throat. The car slowly trundled upward and she caught a blurry reflection of herself in the brushed metal wall, scowling. It was…too try-hard. She raised a hand to her lips and scrubbed frantically, watching as her lipstick blotted itself down to a blurry, smudged stain. _Hm. Better._

“You look good nuff ta eat,” slurred her friend, and she started slightly, unaware that he had shuffled over towards her while she studied herself. _Well, that was sort of the point._ A metal hand reached out toward her and V snatched it up at the wrist.

She didn’t know if it was the anticipation, her nerves, the Heat, or Johnny’s anger that she could feel poking in the back of her brain, but she suddenly really wanted to teach this guy a lesson. “Touch me and it will be the last thing that chrome ever does, you dig?” The elevator doors blessedly wrenched open then, and she released him and strode out of the elevator, ignoring the “Fucking _bitch_ ” she heard behind her. She wished they weren’t going to the same place. 

V saw his glowing optics on her before anything else came into focus in the dark hallway. They shifted slowly from white to red as she approached, and she felt a low throb intensify inside, augmented by the droning bass she could hear through the walls. She thought she might vibrate out of her skull and she wasn’t even inside yet. 

Dum Dum was leaning up against the entranceway doors, with a few other Maelstromers lounging casually. He was without his tactical vest for once, and V could see every plate, tube and gear, and the seams where they met skin and fibrous muscle. _I’m not the only one playing hardball,_ she realized as she hissed out a slow exhale. She slowed and stopped in front of him at a distance which might have been threatening any other day. She felt the other gonks tense slightly, ready to reach for their weapons, but Dum Dum just gave her a sinister, chrome-laced grin. _Huh. Those chompers are new._

“‘S preem, V?”

“I’m sure you’ll show me, yeah?” The other gangers were staring at the two of them with unabashed curiosity. She heard whispers, and could barely make out “ _bitch from All Foods with the Militech tip”._ V turned to address one when she felt a violent yank on her elbow from behind her. The gonk from the elevator had caught up.

“You _cunt—_ ”

She whipped her pistol out from the small of her back, twisted the gonk’s chrome arm out and away from her, and shot through it before the Maelstromers had finished drawing their weapons. The appendage dangled from a few unsevered wires as the man groaned in surprise and pain. “I fucking warned you not to touch me.”

She heard the sound of several guns un-cocking as she put her weapon away, and then a metallized chuckle whose joy was at odds with its raspy, techo tones. Everyone ignored the now-crippled man stumbling away. 

“Be lyin' if I said that didn' galvanize my steel,” she heard Dum Dum say, close enough to her ear to feel his hot, dry breath on her neck. “Lookin’ shiny, it’ll be preem in the light,” he said, staring at her chest. She felt a cold finger snake along the laces on the side of her shorts, curling into the top few and yanking, so her arm was pressed against his torso, forcing her hand out to grip him on the waist. He felt cold and hot all at once; there was skin there, and a ragged edge before the metal of his pelvis began to wrap around his side. The touch shot a sweaty shiver up her spine; she wanted to lick where her hand was. She turned her head toward him and saw an inhaler in his free hand; his gaze bored into her as he brought it to his lips and pressed the button, breathing deeply and exhaling cold this time, making goosebumps appear on her neck. He raised it to her slowly, until the mouthpiece was bumping gently against her lips, asking for permission for more than just giving her a hit. _Time to execute, V._

She opened her mouth wider than was strictly necessary, giving him a good view of her tongue wrapping around the mouthpiece before her lips closed. She leveled her gaze at him and he pressed down as she took a huge breath in, holding it before releasing a similar cloud of aerosol through her nostrils.

Her world changed immediately and noticeably. Everything was turned up to 11: she could feel the air in her lungs, the blood in her veins, the searing heat and burning cold of the different parts of Dum Dum, could hear every rustle of the other gangers, could feel the muted music in her bones. Her eyes had gone red and hazy; she didn’t think that was from the lace. It was crystal clear and soft velvet all at once. 

“Dum Dum!” A crackle on some ganger’s radio echoed in her skull. He made no move and neither did she, his faceplate pulsating with her heartbeat. 

“No-go, Patricia; some merc showed up; looks like he’s gonna dock her right here in the fuckin’ doorway.”

Dum Dum growled low in his throat. “Wouldn’t give you gonks the pleasure of watchin’. Tell her I’m off the fuckin’ clock.” She felt his finger release her from against him and V swayed slightly while his hand covered hers on his torso, using it to tug her forward past the doors. “C’mon, I’ll give ya the grand tour.” The doors opened for them and she followed him down the stairs into oblivion.

\---

The dance floor at Totentanz was packed past capacity; it wasn’t so much dancing as it was undulation to the ripping, raucous noise of club darling Tinnitus. V thought she could understand why people might prefer them while rolling on lace; she knew she certainly did. The vermillion web of lasers that carpeted the air around them crackled with energy; she could taste it, hear it, feel it. Dum Dum had led her straight into the middle of the mass, pressing his chest against her back as they rocked against one another. Her head lolled back on his shoulder, watching the shifting lights and shadows without really seeing them, her arms draped lazily over his as he used the camouflage of the crowd to explore her body. He had his hands everywhere: in her hair, around her neck, sliding down her chest, cupping her breasts, gripping her sides, running up her thighs, grabbing her ass; pushing each touch to the point of pain, squeezing hard enough to hear V’s breath hitch and then moving on. If she was in her right mind, she might taunt him about enjoying her fleshiest bits. As it was, she was making these whiny moans right in his ear not entirely on purpose, feeling the moisture grow between her legs with each passing minute.

Her skin was sizzling; she shrugged out of her jacket and let it drop to the filthy floor, kicking it aside. It was back home with its people, anyway. She felt Dum Dum’s hands stutter to a stop on her, moving to grip her elbows and extend her arms in the light; V saw then clearly, what lace had done to the lingering Heat in her body.

The pinpricks on her wrists had doubled in size, the spidery veins running out from them a deep crimson red; her hands were covered in them, and they extended upward past her elbow up to the juncture of her shoulders. She heard his buzzy voice in her ear, his face pressed into the side of her own.

“Ya got some Heat in ya, vicious?” Before she could answer, she felt one of his hands push past her waistband down into stockings and panties. Nobody around them noticed. The edges and joints of his fingers were rough on her delicate flesh, although the fingertips had been padded with fairly smooth silicone, and he pulled a low groan from her throat as he pushed a cold digit into her waiting core.

Dum Dum shuddered against her. “Fuckin’ preem, yeah,” he muttered, “drenched like only Heat can make a bitch.” His hunt for confirmation completed, he pushed another finger inside her and brought his inhaler up to her lips for another rip. She took it like a pro, and the edge from the metal seemed to dull a little bit, leaving a blunted, pleasurable pulse as his fingers started to work inside her, scissoring in clear preparation for something. She jerked her hips against his hand, chasing the feeling as she heard the press of a button and felt his freshly-drugged exhale on her skin.

“So eager,” he mumbled, more to himself than anything. At some point, they had shifted direction, and she could now make out the shadowy shapes of the balcony where she assumed the VIP area was. V squinted and could make out the fuzzy red optics of a hulking man and a smaller set of optics on a woman, and there, so faint she could barely make it out - Johnny Silverhand, leaning one foot up onto the railing, staring down at the dance floor. He could be looking anywhere, but she knew he was watching Dum Dum’s hand in her pants. So, apparently, were the optic eyes. 

“Dum Dum,” she panted into his ear. “We’ve got an audience.”

“So fuckin’ what?” She felt his teeth on her shoulder in response, and the only appropriate retort she could come up with was to reach back and grab his hips, grinding her ass back into them and whatever that hard, warm rod was between his legs. He stuttered a grunt out, his hand stilling inside her.

“It’s your boss.” Dum Dum’s head jerked up from where it had been staring down her body. 

“Huh. Yeah.” She took advantage of his distraction to reach a hand around and palm the augmentation in his groin, testing its sensitivity. Her actions earned her another grunt and he jerked his hips against hers, yanking his fingers from inside her to shove them roughly into her mouth. She tasted chrome and herself, slurping on them messily while staring directly at Johnny. V felt his engram body stiffen, right there in the base of her brain; she pushed it further, turning her head to press against Dum Dum’s face. She was just at the right angle to close her lips on top of his piercings and tug with her teeth; it wasn’t a kiss, but Johnny sure acted like it had been. She saw his hand fly upward to flip her the bird; she went to return the gesture, but felt Dum Dum jerk her hand back into her body.

“Can’t be pissin’ off Royce like that, you gonk,” he growled, mouth chasing hers to suck her bottom lip in between his own, biting down until she squeaked and tasted copper. V grimaced, but the sharp bloom of pain was refreshing against the heady, smothering buzz of lace and heat. She turned to face him then, sliding her hot, open mouth down his neck and onto his chest, leaving a smeared trail of blood from her lip in her wake. Her tongue dragged along the seams where synthetic skin met cold metal on his chest, pulling twitches out of him, working her way slowly lower until she dropped to her knees on the sticky floor. She mouthed at his hardness through his pants, grinning up at him lasciviously.

“Think this’ll piss him off?” She wasn’t sure if she was asking about Royce or Johnny, but she was pretty sure she knew the answer either way. 

“Hnnh, fuckin’ tease, softy,” he snarled in reply, one hand grabbing her face to keep her in place, strong fingers pressing into the squish of her cheeks until it smarted. The other hand ripped open his fly, reaching in and slowly drawing himself out for V to behold.

Dum Dum was surprisingly traditional in shape if not in size, segments of the same soft silicone as his fingertips stitched together with what she assumed might be his real skin He was was impossibly hard, feeling like freshly-forged steel when she closed a hand around him experimentally and scraped her fingernail up one side. The sharp hiss through his teeth confirmed her theory; he released her face to wrap her hair around his hand and shove her down onto his waiting cock. “Ssssuck.”

V didn’t need telling twice; her cheeks hollowed out, suction drawing him into her mouth and further, pushing him into her throat as she bumped up against his pelvis, gagging with the effort. The noise spurred Dum Dum into action; his hips established a rough, fast rhythm against her face. Her eyes rolled back, watching his face glower at her, doubled up and spinning in a halo of laser red as she focused on taking shallow sips of breath between thrusts. 

His mechanical mutters of praise for her mouth—” _so s-soft and fucking hot, vicious_ ”—was interrupted by the static of a radio that V could barely distinguish over the blood in her own hears.

“—take that slut somewhere else, you look gonked as fuck with your mouth hangin’ open like that, Dum Dum—” and then she couldn’t hear any more over the noise he made as she grazed her teeth along his sensitive sides. 

He yanked on her hair then, pulling her off of him with an obscene slurp, forcing her to stand. “Shit’s preem enough to make me blow a fuse right here.”

She closed her hand around him a little too tightly for it to be pleasurable, tugging roughly before tucking him back into his pants. “Better not; have to find someone else here to fuck me so hard I black out.”

“Fat fuckin’ chance, softy,” he sneered at her. “Rip ‘em to pieces before they could touch ya.” He was scrabbling to get back into her shorts, but V stumbled backwards just out of his grip, yanking him along by his waistband. They made their slow, lurching way towards the bar, one of them stopping every few feet to grope at the other like horny teenagers. When V leaned over the bar tap to pluck a fifth of tequila from the shelves, she was jolted forward so hard by the ram of his hips against her ass that she almost dropped the bottle. She let out a surprised moan and felt her back bowing out and upward as he used her hair to curl her back into him, throat bared just as in the picture she had sent him earlier.

V saw him again as Dum Dum ground mercilessly against her; Johnny, staring at her from across the bar, his face unreadable through the cloud of cigarette smoke. She winked at him raunchily and felt that poke in her brain again.

“You want it right here, hm?” She could feel Dum Dum’s thick cock rubbing against her sex, making her already weak knees tremble. 

“Not unless you want to share with all these thirsty-ass fucks,” she grunted back at him, and Dum Dum noticed, seemingly for the first time, the crowd of cyborgs, gangers, and regular NC folk all eyeing them with varying expressions of fascination, disgust, arousal, and in the case of one chromed-out girl with blue hair at the end of the bar, jealousy. 

“Nah, not tonight.” He released her then, grabbing her by the hand and leading her towards the stairs to the VIP area. _Oh, shit, are we really going to say hello?_ She paused just briefly then, blinking up at him with the question, and his optics softened from red to a hazy pink-white, the softest she’d seen them…well, ever. “You’re all mine now.”

 _He fuckin’ wishes,_ V heard Johnny’s voice deep in her brain, distant but no less arrogant than it had been earlier in the evening. It spurred her on, following the borg up the stairway to some twisted heaven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome. :D
> 
> This is like the wind-up before the bass drops on an EDM track and everyone thinks they're gonna die from the tension. I KNOW I AM AND I'M WRITING THE DAMN THING.


	14. Dum Dum's Hidden Talent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Presented without comment.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Dangerous Woman," Ariana Grande (I'm not the biggest fan but this song is objectively sexy don't @ me).

They had charged right past Royce and Patricia, who were still facing the balcony. _Thank goodness for small favors._ Dum Dum tugged her down the catwalk behind the balcony spaces, until they were tucked into the furthest from the stairs. Empty bottles, cans, and glasses littered the table in the middle of the large, u-shaped booth and underneath it; V could hear the resistance the floor offered when she tried to lift her boot off of it. The booth was just far enough behind the huge speakers to take the deafening edge off the pulsing beat, making it more of a feeling than a noise.

It was safe to say V and Dum Dum were feeling it. Her veins buzzed as he manhandled her into the booth, shoving her inelegantly to settle not into the bench but on top of it, making the wall the only thing keeping her from listing too far from the left or the right. She could see the DJ stand, part of the floor, the other balconies around the top level of the club, but their alcove was dark and shrouded from the speaker. His faceplate lit their bodies in a rich red glow, her torso glittering like shattered glass. She barely had time to undo the button on her shorts before he was wrenching them down over her hips and boots; her pistol and phone tumbled out and landed on the PVC seat with soft thuds. She watched his tongue (also surprisingly natural, the number of piercings in it notwithstanding) dart out, licking a wide stripe from her belly button up, through the valley between her breasts, over her collarbone, up her neck to the soft spot just behind her ear. “Sorry if ya liked these, but …”

V was only momentarily confused, her breath heaving in her chest as she felt chrome hands grip at the crotch of her stockings _and_ her panties, hearing the tearing of fabric as Dum Dum ripped both open at the seams, leaving her exposed and at his mercy. “Hm, now _that’s_ better.”

Even in her lace-rolling, sex-crazed state, V recognized a power move when she saw one and sought to correct the balance immediately. One hand gripped a handful of synthetic dreads at the back of Dum Dum’s head, pulling him forehead to forehead with her, the metal fixtures of his optics digging into her skin. The other reached into his pocket for the inhaler she knew was there. “No, you’re fuckin’ not sorry,” she hissed at him, “and if you are…”

She paused to press her mouth to his, not for intimacy but for necessity, as she worked the inhaler’s mouthpiece between both of their lips. She pushed the button and felt not only the burn of the lace but the vacuum effect as they inhaled together, fighting for the same fuel. “Prove it,” she exhaled in his face, letting go of his head and giving him a good, hard shove. His weight landed backwards on his knees and his mouth landed inches from the apex of her thighs. He looked for a second like he was going to kill her; V doubled down, reclining back on her elbows in the space between the booth and the wall, taking a swig from their jacked bottle of tequila and opening her legs wider for him. For a moment, neither moved.

She _felt_ rather than heard his snarl in reply, because his mouth was already pressed hard against her cunt, his tongue whipping against her clit like he had a vendetta he was going to satisfy with pleasure. Her head fell backwards at the same time her hips pushed forward, searching for more friction, a unfiltered, raw, moan escaping from her mouth. A low, raspy chuckle sounded somewhere in the vicinity of her crotch. _So much for a power move._

Dum Dum forced her ankles over his shoulders and leaned in more, bending her knees and forcing her into a lewder, more open angle for him. V’s head was spinning, hurtling through space. Her hand reached desperately for a part of him to anchor to and felt one of his hands snatch hers up, placing it across her hips underneath his own fingers and anchoring both her arm and her pelvis in place by applying pressure of his own. A moment later and she felt the cold stretch of two of his fingers, and then a third. She ached with the fullness of it, letting his name fall from her lips with a string of curses as he began to move and curl them inside her.

She saw stars as his tongue redoubled its efforts against her bundle of nerves, her head falling to the side to stare down the booth in a haze, right at—Johnny. 

_What._

And not, she noted in dorphed-out wonder, shimmery, blocked-out Johnny, but full-engram, solid-as-he-got Johnny, glowing electric blue in the darkness of the cubby. He was sitting casually with one arm slung over the back of the booth, one foot casually resting on the table, his head inches from hers, fully turned to meet her gaze, sunglasses on his head to stare right in her eyes. Her lips opened in surprise? Dismay? Wonder? Hard to say, really, because before she could even think of anything to think—

V came, harder than she’d had in the past two weeks, harder than she ever had, possibly. Her body curled up on itself, fingers desperately scrabbling at Dum Dum’s head as he worked through her vice-like grip on his fingers, the wet noises of her walls loud enough for the two (three?) of them to hear over the rhythmic throbbing of the music. She was quickly growing too sensitive and she mewled at him to let up; he did, after torturous moments that seemed like hours.

“How the…fuck…are you…so goddamn good…at that?” she panted out, watching the borg sit back on his heels with a self-satisfied smile, wiping his chin on the skin of her thigh. 

“Get curious ‘ganic chicks in here, lookin’ to make their inputs jealous,” he said, as if he knew exactly what she was doing here. _But that would make Johnny your input._ V dared not take her eyes off Dum Dum to see if Johnny was around for that particular revelation. “None of ‘em have pussy this preem, though.” And, as if that were as common a compliment as “Nice jacket,” he pulled the inhaler from her hand, hit a puff, pressed his mouth back to her folds and started over.

V squirmed with the intense sensation of his tongue on her again, feeling the cold metal bearings of his tongue piercings slap against her clit, making her twitch with each contact. Was it possible to die from pleasure? She would be okay with finding out right about now. She chugged some more tequila as Dum Dum wormed his fingers back inside her, feeling them sink in with far less resistance than before.

“Okay, now _this_ is some rockstar shit right here.” Johnny was standing over her now, one knee sunk into the vinyl seat so he could be closer to her writhing body. She glared at him, her head too muddled to argue, trying to say “get the fuck outta here” with her eyes while she whimpered broken curses out of her mouth at the same time because of Dum Dum.

“Told you I was gonna watch,” he shrugged, reaching his fingers out to hover over her abdomen before sliding their cold, metal fingertips up the plane of her stomach slowly. “Didn’t say I was gonna touch, but when in Totentanz…”

V tried to shrug away from Johnny, but Dum Dum _twisted_ his digits inside her and she keened, her back arching up into the rockerboy’s hand as it skimmed over the surface of her bra. She thought she might be losing her mind when she felt his hand slide under the cup and caress the soft flesh there, thumbing over her nipple as it grew taut under his touch.

He rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, pulling as much as her garment would allow as Dum Dum spooled her up for another orgasm, her thighs quaking with the effort of remaining parted for him. She could sense Johnny lean over her, although her eyes had long since vanished into the back of her head. She felt his lips, hot against her ear. “Now, doll.”

V complied, violently. She felt Dum Dum grunt underneath the pressure from her thighs and wildly bucking hips. Tears sprang into her eyes and streamed down her face, leaving black trails of mascara on her cheeks. By the time her eyes could focus again, Johnny was gone and Dum Dum was pulling her, not ungently, onto her shaky legs outside of the booth.

“That,” he growled at her, accompanied by a sharp smack on the ass, “was the preemest shit I have seen in a long time.” His hand curled around V’s waist and pulled her flush against him, and the solid length of him against her belly sent a surge of warmth shooting up her arms. A thin sheen of perspiration had covered her flushed skin, eyes bright and wild, dilated fully with all the substances in her system. His face was messy with her arousal, and she leaned into him, sticking out her tongue to lay it flat against his chin and lick upward onto his cheek, tasting herself mixed with hot skin and metal. She saw his optics flicker and felt him twitch against her abdomen. 

“Dorph me.”

He had the inhaler in her mouth almost before she finished the sentence, giving her the last press of vapor and sealing his mouth over hers, huffing her exhale into his lungs for the leftovers. He looked wrecked for her as he pulled away. _This_ is _some rockstar shit,_ V smirked to herself. She walked them backwards and he let her, trusting in the metal railing that pressed into the small of her back a few steps later. She knew that over her shoulder the whole of the club was visible, but the speakers kept them a little more hidden, although anyone looking in the right place at the right time would get one hell of a show. 

Dum Dum helped her up to sit on the railing once he realized that was her aim, stepping into the wide V of her legs with grip still firm across her back. Which was good. The drop wasn’t awful, but it wouldn’t feel great, either. _Especially not basically naked._ V worked her hands between their bodies to unfasten his pants, freeing his straining erection from the confines of the fabric. 

She didn’t break eye contact as she raised one palm and licked it sloppily, dropping it back down to smooth over his pulsing head once, twice, three times before she notched him into her entrance. He was panting harshly through his nose mod, a chrome smile stretched so wide across his face he thought she could see his actual skull. “C’mon, then, you gonk,” she encouraged him, locking her arms around his neck. “Survey your kingdom and wreck me.”

Dum Dum pushed into her with such force that V just knew deep in her soul that she would be ruined tomorrow, but the stretch was so fantastic that she thought she might short-circuit on the spot. His head dropped to his shoulder with a choked “ _Fuck, vicious_ ,” and she only had some breathy moans to offer in response, hooking her ankles together to encourage him to move. He did, far more slowly than she was expecting; she thought he might be savoring the sensation, and that just wouldn’t do at all. She shifted her hips as much as she could in her precarious position, letting him have a little more time with the gentle side she suspected he didn’t expose all that much. V was firmly anchored around him now, and she pulled his hand around her back off to help him curl it around the railing to the side of her thigh, bringing his other to slide around her throat. His smile had long ago dropped from his face, his mouth hanging slack-jawed.

“Dum Dum.”

He jerked his head a little, the only sign that he had heard her in his own personal euphoria. He looked like he might want to kiss her; she saw his face sink towards her own, and she took a risk.

She spat in his face. “Fuck me, Dum Dum.” 

He roared as he began pummeling into her with an intensity she thought she would explode from, and she could not stop the shit-eating grin from spreading over her face, her moans becoming half-laughs with the intensity of the sensations punching into her with each bone-rattling thrust. Her vision swam in swirls of red and blue, lace and heat, hot and cold. Dum Dum’s teeth sank into the juncture of her neck and shoulder hard enough to draw blood, and she barely felt anything.

And then there was Johnny, leaning casually against the table of the booth behind them, staring right at her as she got railed into next week. His gaze dropped and she followed it without thinking, blinking in surprise (although how was this still a shock to her?) at his absolutely rock-hard cock straining against the press of his pants. She felt it throbbing in her own body; or maybe that was her own throbbing as she quickly approached another release, spurred on by Dum Dum’s pressure on her throat and his increasingly erratic thrusts. She wrenched a hand away from Dum Dum’s shoulders to snake it between them, fingers barely needing to brush her clit before she was hovering right on the edge again.

V’s vision started to close up, black pressing in from the sides as the crush on her windpipe increased. Dum Dum was chasing his own finish recklessly, but just before V’s eyes rolled up into her head, she felt a firm grip on her chin that was not her partner.

Johnny held her head in his hand with something approaching tenderness, dark gaze piercing hers even in the haze of the chaotic atmosphere.

“Give me one more, kitten.”

V’s mouth fell open soundlessly, eyes unmoving from his as she came apart, shuddering from white-hot lightning streaking from her cunt into her brain, down her limbs, and out her fingers and toes. Her insides clenched and she felt Dum Dum lose it, grunting fiercely as _something_ hot and thick pumped into her with each faltering thrust. His grip on her neck released and her eyelids fluttered closed while she sucked in precious lungfuls of oxygen. He had presence of mind enough to shuffle her away from the rail and plop her down on the edge of the booth before he leaned heavily into the table. Her eyes opened and Johnny was gone.

She shimmied into her shorts gingerly, tucking her effects back into the waistband and pocket. Dum Dum had wandered down the catwalk but returned before she could decide he had ditched her, holding a scruffy zip-up hoodie toward her. “S’ colder outside now than when you came in, vicious, can’t have you freezin’ your great tits off.” V accepted it and was grateful to find it didn’t smell funny and there were no sticky patches.

He followed her down the catwalk and they had both reached the top of the steps when they heard Royce bark at him. “You finally finished fuckin’? There is shit to do, I don’t pay you to keep your dick wet.” Dum Dum looked at V and she raised an understanding hand.

“I’ll see myself out.”

She turned to go and felt a smack on the ass. “See ya, vicious.” It shouldn’t have made her smirk but it did. 

\---

 _Christ_ , it was cold out here. V shivered as she waited for Delamain, the cold starting to bring her out of a pretty deep dorph hole. She was suddenly aware of how much she hurt _everywhere_. Her legs were shaking with the effort of holding herself upright when suddenly Johnny was beside her, wrapping an arm around her to steady her as Del pulled up to the curb. She crawled into the back and asked Del to go home. Johnny was still there, and he still had his hand on her when her eyes slid closed like they had outside the Afterlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :D Comments and constructive feedback always welcome.
> 
> I NEED A NAP.
> 
> Everyone please see Marshmallow_Mel’s comment on safety if choking/breath play is your bag. Don’t be a Dum Dum about it (hahaaaaaaa, get it?!).


	15. The Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -hits you with that smut-fluff double whammy-
> 
> Recommended listening: "Return to Love," Black Atlass

_V didn’t really recall how she’d gotten here; she knew she had called Del, she knew her guts had turned themselves inside out into a trash bin in the lobby of her megabuilding, and she knew that Johnny had rubbed her back and held her hair away from her face while she heaved._

_She knew he had closed his hands around hers, helping her strip as best as he could, short of physically taking over her body; she knew she had protested when he went to pull off her underwear, shushing her with a “_ They’re basically a formality now, doll,” _, and she knew he had forced her to take three big gulps of water from a bottle on the counter._

_She knew he was here and wasn’t going anywhere._

_\---_

_“Johnny…” His name was raspy in her mouth, vocal cords raw from a night of dorphing._

_“Yes, kitten.” His engram was fully clothed in the shower stall, although V did notice that his shirt was soaked and so was his hair. It made her smile that his (her? their?) subconscious would bother with such a detail. He had one palm splayed against her chest, helping hold her against the tiled wall while he manipulated the other to squeeze a soapy shower sponge over her body, being delicate but thorough between the juncture of her thighs and over the angry, open teeth marks on her shoulder. She hissed at the contact but made no movements to stop him._

_“What’re you doing?” He pulled her off the wall then, pressing her back to his chest in an absurd pantomime of her experience earlier that night. She watched him manipulate her hands, feeling far away from her own body, until she had a palm full of shampoo and was massaging her scalp with it. It was a simple touch compared to the extremes of earlier, but it was deliciously soft and made her shiver, even under the hot spray._

_“What I wished someone would have done for me after a night of hardcore rockstar shit.” He gripped her upper arms gently, turning her to face him, encouraging her with a curled finger to tilt her chin back and rinse her hair in the showerhead stream._

_“Oh.”_ Well, duh _. She felt the water soak through the suds on her head, and would have stood there as long as he held her. She’d do anything as long as he held her._

_“…V? Did you hear me? Can you get the water?”_

_A clumsy hand fumbled behind her back, missing the lever two or three times before making contact and pushing it into the off position. The showerhead petered to a slow drip, and then Johnny was pressing a towel to her body, gently buffing her dry. She stuck a hand out to steady herself when the contact made her sway._

_V felt floaty and soft, and she was pretty sure that it was comedown exhaustion mixed with the residual tequila in her blood. The sharp edges of a monumental hangover were starting to cut into her head, and she winced as Johnny pulled her into the harsh light of the bathroom vanity. She felt her hand go through the familiar motions of him grabbing some in-tact panties for her, and she even managed to put them on without help, although she had to take a breather on her way up, forehead resting on his stomach while she panted out the wave of nausea._

_Johnny tried to wrap her hand around her toothbrush and she shook her head, leaning against him for support. “I’ll ralph if anything goes back and forth in my mouth like that right now.”_

_“At least mouthwash, then. Wilson can smell your breath downstairs.”_

_V’s embarrassment shocked her into sluggish action, managing a halfhearted swish or two before spitting._

_“MaxDoc now.” His finger pointed to one on the shelf._

_“Okay, sir.” She felt the hand on her back pinch her lightly in warning, and she reluctantly took a puff. The vapor fought back the pounding in her head and the pulsing in her neck wound. “Can we go to bed now?”_

_“Yes, kitten.” Johnny steered her toward her bed,_ tsk _ing and forcing her head onto a pillow when she tried to fall into the cubby sideways like she normally did, reaching to push a damp clump of hair away from her face. “Sleep like a normal person, for fuck’s sake.”_

_Her hand caught his, and he saw something new in her eyes for, perhaps, the first time since he’d taken up residence in her brain: fear._

_“But I’m not a normal person. I’m two people.” Her altered state was making her tongue loose. “And then I’ll be no one.”_

_He was clambering onto the bed with her then, trying not to grip her face with his hands as tightly as the vice she had put around his heart. “Now, listen, kitten, don’t talk that fuckin’ mess, okay? We are gonna figure this shit out, and we’re gonna fix your brain, and if that means pullin’ my plug when it’s time, then I’m cool with that.”_

_He watched her eyes slowly get shiny with tears. “Johnny, don’t—”_

_Johnny pushed a finger to her lips. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, V.” There was no burn in the words, and she fell silent. He wanted to kiss her so fucking badly, press all that fear out of her with his mouth. No one could but him, and deep down, he was sure she knew it, even as she had run around like a madwoman searching for an alternative._

_He settled for stretching out on his side next to her, feeling the weight of himself on bed but seeing no indentation on the linens. He left a hand cradling her head, feeling her grip on his wrist unwilling to break. They stayed like that for a long minute, just staring at each other, and by extension, themselves. He felt her fingers tangle themselves into his other hand, taking the opportunity to turn her wrist and examine the place where two tiny holes had turned her world right-the-fuck upside-down 14 long days ago._

_“V, your pokes are gone,” he said quietly. No response. She was asleep, her face in his hand._

\---

“V? Jesus, fuck, what happened to you?”

 _Christ, why did the air hurt so much?_ She could only manage the tiniest of glances at her holo screen to see Vik’s blurry figure before she was shielding her face in her hands, her answer muffled around them.

“Nothin’…I went a little too hard last night, that’s all.” His pointed silence told her what he was thinking better than words ever could. V groaned behind her fingers.

“I get it, I get it! I’ll come over as soon as I can for the scan, okay?”

“Sure.” Vik clicked his tongue. “You’re a mess, Birdie.” 

The call cut out. V stretched experimentally and immediately regretted it. Every muscle in her body ached, but the soreness in her hips, thighs, and core was another level. The joints felt seized like a car motor without oil, and even just thinking about her inner walls made them sore. She swung her legs out of the cubby and just sat, head cradled in her hands. What did she even remember about last night?

_Totentanz…Dum Dum and his damn tongue…a ton of lace…Delamain…_

_…and Johnny._ _He had brought her home, showered her, put her to bed, and…fallen asleep with her?_

Surely V was misremembering something; she shook her head slightly, trying to clear it, and immediately rethought all her life choices, groaning out loud to an empty apartment. _Huh. Empty._

“Johnny?” she said out loud, voice still husky from her aerosol adventures.

Nothing. V knew he was there, felt him in her brain, but he was either not listening or hiding or angry or all three. She wouldn’t blame him for any of it.

She stumbled from her bed stiffly, throwing on jeans, a shirt, and a jacket. She spent a minute more rummaging and found a pair of oversized sunglasses to slip on her face. She knew it was gonna hurt to go outside no matter what, but every little bit helped.

\---

“All clear, Birdie.”

“Really? Like, really really?” She examined her wrists as Vik just had.

“”Yep. Scans are clear, and your puncture wounds are healed over, see?” V did see. She touched the skin of her wrists like they were new dermal grafts; she didn’t remember what it felt like to not have tenderness there. “Turn this way.”

The sting of the needle in her arm made her hiss, but her blistering headache subsided less than 30 seconds later. Vik had given her the good hangover juice. She sighed in relief, rubbing her hands over her tired eyes. “Oh, Doc, you really know how to treat your patients.”

“Wouldn’t need to if my patients wouldn’t ignore sound medical advice and try and self-treat,” he said nonchalantly. "Now your shoulder." He was a kind friend to not mention the very obvious method by which she'd come by this wound.

“I don’t regret it, but also will never do it again.” V had never spoken truer words as far as she was concerned. Vik chuckled as she yelped at the med patch he pressed over the marks, the medicine in the patch stinging fiercely.

“Wanna put money on it?”

“Sure don’t.”

“Smart.” Vik started doing some tidying, leaving V to her thoughts in the chair. When she tried to wrap her head around everything that had happened, it seemed impossible, fantastical, even. She saw Saul in her mind’s eye and felt a ping of a heartstring; maybe in another life, they would have run the strongest nomad family around. 

But this was her life. And the constant in it wasn’t Saul.

“Hey, Vik? Do you still have your tattoo software on your implanter?”

“Yeah, why? I haven’t touched it in forever, it doesn’t have anything fancy uploaded.”

“That’s okay, let me show you. How much?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and constructive feedback always welcome! :D
> 
> I do apologize if the change of pace from last chapter to this gave you whiplash. I am sitting in a metaphorical neck brace as we speak. xD


	16. The Tipping Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Windin' up for the final pitch of the game, friends.
> 
> Suggested listening: "Gimme All Your Love," Alabama Shakes

They were just…sitting. And it was nice, and only a little unsettling.

The radio was on, but not enough to be intelligible; it just added to the low rustle of city noise that was coming in through the cracked window, accompanied by rain. Jonny had reclined back into the couch in that ridiculous way that only arrogant men can do, taking up space for three with just his knees, one arm draped across the back of the seat. V was tucked into the crook of his arm; they weren’t cuddling, not really, but their sides were pressed together. The hand attached to Johnny’s arm was dragging its fingertips over her shoulder slowly, absentmindedly. V had a tumbler out filled with tequila on the rocks, sipping slowly at it; in her other hand was a lit cigarette. She was letting Johnny curl his fingers around her own and raise it to her lips whenever he wanted a drag. 

It had been several days since the good doctor had given V a clean bill of health, the Relic notwithstanding. She had hit the pavement running, reveling in the fact that her head was truly clear for the first time in a fortnight. She’d lost count of the number of gonks she had picked off with her sniper rifle just because she  _ could _ . 

She and Johnny had fallen back into an easy rhythm of bickering, laughing, and the occasional companionable silence. No one had brought up Totentanz, or the aftermath. V thought it might be easier like that for both of them; it could remain in its fuzzy, memory dream-state, and it didn’t matter if it had actually happened or not. There was no denying that he was  _ around _ more; there were days he wouldn’t disappear at all. She knew she should be concerned about it, but she liked it so much she ignored the implications.

His fingers were combing through her hair now, twitching slightly, like he was fingering a fretboard. She felt him brush against her tiny braid and pause, running it between his fingers. “How long have you had this thing, anyway?”

V had to think. “…since I was 11? Maybe 12.”

Johnny bent it in his fingers. “Thought it’d be a lot crunchier than this with that kinda age on it.”

V knocked into him with her close shoulder good-naturedly. “I fuckin’ wash it and rebraid it, you gonk.”

He tugged it gently. “All the Bakkers had ‘em?”

“Yeah. I know a lot of them stopped doing it after the clan disbanded. But… I don’t know. Family.”

He raised her hand to her lips and she took the last long drag of the cigarette, holding it in before exhaling slowly and stubbing it out in the ashtray on the console table in front of them. “Does Saul have one?”

“Yeah…” Her tone was suddenly suspicious. “Why?”

Johnny pushed a hand up in a gesture of meant-no-harm. “He’s just the only other Bakker I’ve ever heard you talk about, s’all. Wanna give me one?”

Of course he asked as V was taking a sip of her drink. She snorted and ended up sputtering, coughing sharply. “You want me to braid your fuckin’ hair, Silverhand?”

He waggled his eyebrows at her from behind his aviators. “Why not? Don’t think I’d look cool anymore?”

“Nah, you could pull off a clown afro and still look like a rock god.” A kind but very specific compliment. “Why do you want one?”

He shrugged casually. “We’re family, ain’t we? In a fuckin’ weird, literally-inseparable kinda way.” 

She took another sip of her drink but her eyes were crinkled in a smile at him over the rim. “Yeah, okay. Why the hell not?” She set down her drink and stood, disappearing into the bathroom. He heard rustling, and then she was back, accompanied by a tiny, black elastic hair-tie. She tapped at the frame of his aviators. “Off, please.” He complied, and she grasped the top of his head gently and turned his head 90 degrees to the right. “Stay, please.”

Johnny saw her bend at the waist out of the corner of his eye, attempting to steady herself and part a section of his hair in the correct spot. He huffed out an impatient breath. “Don’t be a gonk, V. Sit down.”

“But—”

“I’m not gonna bite, unless you ask  _ really  _ nicely.” It was her turn to huff then, rolling her eyes and sliding her knees onto the couch on either side of his legs, settling into his lap. He rested a hand casually on her leg, the other arm still stretched across the couch.

_ This is fine. Everything is fine.  _ She willed her fingers to stop their tiny tremors as pushed his hair back from his face, sectioning a small square of strands behind his ear off with her fingernail. She bit the elastic in her teeth to keep from losing it, split her chosen hairs into three groups, and started twining them together tightly, pulling down as she went.

Johnny relaxed, appreciating the tiny tugs for what they were and nothing more. “V?” 

“Hm.”

“I gotta ask you something.” V shrugged her shoulders to imply she was game, and Johnny pressed on.

“Who was the best?”

“Say what now?” She was only half-paying attention, pulling the elastic from between her lips, twisting it in tight circles around the end of the braid until it was tight enough. She raked her fingers through his hair again, admiring her handiwork. 

“Y’know, while you were drugged. Who dicked you down the best?”

“Sweet  _ Christ,  _ Johnny.” V let her head drop to his shoulder in exasperation before sitting back. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me. I wasn’t exactly filling out a rubric everyday, y’know?” She reached behind her and grabbed the rest of her drink, downing it all in one go.

“Sure, okay, but you  _ had  _ to be doin’ some kinda comparing—”

“Don’t know what to tell you, Silverhand.” She went to swing her leg off of him, but his grip tightened above her knee.

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be a gonk. It’s just fun—here, I’ll ask the questions.”

V rolled her eyes so hard she thought she heard her neck crack, but settled back down into his lap. “Braidin’ your hair and talkin’ boys,” she muttered. “Weirdest fuckin’ sleepover I’ve ever been to.”

Johnny had turned back to face her but left his aviators off. He smirked at her, not unkindly. “Best hands?”

“Vik.” It fell out of her mouth before she even had time to think about it, her face surprised at the ease with which the answer came. He nodded as if she had said something very wise.

“Hmm, yes, the good doctor. Makes sense. Best hair?”

“Goro.”

“What? In his little old man bun?” Johnny scoffed unbelievingly.

“You haven’t seen it down. Feels like silk. Copro pay must buy some preem hair care.” She combed her fingers through his again, a faraway, recollective look on her face.

“That’s nice. Don’t stop.” She didn’t. “Best dirty talk?”

“Uh…” A pink flush crept across V’s cheeks. “Saul.”

“Example?” She flushed deeper, but he was being so casual about it, it was hard not to fall into the trap. “‘I wanna feel you from the inside.’”

“Not bad. Said better.” She rolled her eyes at him, making a rude gesture imitating stroking his ego.

“That’s a good one; best dick?”

“Can’t answer; not everyone stuck it in.” She was scratching at his scalp now, watching his eyes roll a little.

“Fair. Best mouth?”

“You mean best kisser, or best pussy eater?”

“Pussy first.”

V suddenly couldn’t look at his face anymore, twisting away and casting her eyes toward the ceiling. “Also an inaccurate sample, but even if it weren’t, the answer would still be Dum Dum.”

Johnny barked out a surprised laugh. “The borg?!”

“I mean, yeah!” She was blushing furiously now. “You saw, you…were there.”

_ Aw, shit. _

She couldn’t unsay it now. She had put it out into the universe and now it was reality. Her fingers crept to a halt in his hair and she withdrew her hands, running one through her own locks sheepishly.  _ Better rip this whole Band-Aid off. _ “I, uh…never said thanks. For taking care of me afterward.”

Forcing herself to look Johnny in the eye right was one of the harder things V had done that week. “Thank you.”

He shrugged nonchalantly, like she was thanking him for a coffee or some other small favor. “Sure thing. You were fuckin’ gonked out of your mind. I was impressed.” He gave her his biggest rockstar grin, and they felt the thin layer of tension dissolve. “Okay, now best kisser, not on the mouth.”

“Hmm. Saul again.”

“And on the mouth?”

“No data available. I didn’t kiss anyone.” 

Johnny blinked in surprise. He hadn’t realized that. “I saw you swappin’ spit with Mr. Maelstrom.”

“No, we were swapping lace and your mouth is just the hole that’s connected to your lungs that does it. Definitely wasn’t a kiss.” V got that faraway look again, her next words muttered more to herself than anything. “Still pretty hot, though.”

“And what about on the dance floor?” 

“Also not a kiss. You were too far away to tell and I wanted to piss you off.” She grinned impishly.

“Frigid bitch.” There was no malice in his voice.

“The opposite, actually.” 

The corners of Johnny’s mouth twitched upward, reaching for one of her hands, rubbing over the inside of her wrist. “More like a hot fuckin’ mess—hey, are your pokes still there?” He could feel something raised on the surface and pulled her hand up to look, even as she gave him a little resistance.

“No, they’re all gone, just like Vik said —”  _ Christ _ , she suddenly wasn’t ready to explain this. She knew she would have to eventually, but everything had  _ just  _ started feeling normal. 

He pushed back the sleeve of her baggy sweatshirt to reveal what he had been touching: on her wrist, right where her puncture wounds had been, there was the finest line of script tattoo that read “ _ pretty”. _

Johnny felt his non-existent breath whoosh out of his non-existent lungs. 

“It’s…you know, a reminder of where I came from.” V was studying his face intently now, and he had to try his very hardest to maintain a mask of impassivity.

“Sure, sure, I gotcha.”

There was a very palpable tension between them suddenly, and now it was Johnny who wanted to look anywhere but at her. He reached for his aviators, desperately needing cover, but her soft, firm voice stopped him.

“Aren’t you gonna look at the other one, you gonk?” She even went so far as to raise her hand in the air for him, so all he would need to do is pull down her cuff to reveal it. He swallowed thickly as he reached out and did so.

It read “ _ kitten _ ”.

“And this one’s a reminder of where I want to be now.” 

Neither of them moved for several seconds that felt like eternities, his hand on her sleeve, her hand in the air, their eyes boring into one another’s like they could unlock the secrets of the universe that way.

Johnny broke first.

Well, you are pretty, kitten.” He didn’t give V a chance to respond before he reached up and pulled her lips down to his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :D Comments and constructive feedback always welcome!
> 
> -puts on Ron Burgundy voice-
> 
> I'M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION :O :O :O :O


	17. Johnny's Secret Weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> …and here's the pitch!
> 
> Suggested listening: "Love On The Brain," Rihanna

Jesus _fuck,_ her mouth was soft. She tasted like tequila and cigarettes and _her,_ and his hand trembled against her face as he struggled not to devour her on the spot. Johnny felt his heart (which didn’t technically exist) pounding in his throat. Had been since he pulled down that first sweatshirt sleeve, first with confusion, hurt, chagrin; second with confusion, disbelief, wonder. He had seen his face, his lyrics, his guitar inked on dozens of groupies in his past life. He had scribbled body parts with signatures that became tattoos later, he was sure. But this? A permanent admission of what they had both refused to acknowledge for a little too long? A pet name he had called other girls at some point, but was now singularly hers in his mind? That shit set his blood on fire.

The kiss was gentle, cautious, and when V pulled away slowly after several long moments, both of their chests were heaving with the effort of remaining in control. He tried to say something, his voice strangled with lust.

“V—” She closed her hand over his mouth.

“There are lot of reasons this is really fuckin’ weird, Johnny: you don’t _exist_ , for one; your personality is taking mine over; the chip is literally eating my brain; I can’t tell where I stop and you start some days, and they’re getting more frequent. I’ve thought about it all. I haven’t had a lot of say over my body since you’ve shown up— _I’m not blaming you,_ ” she emphasized when she saw his eyebrows furrow, “and certainly not lately, but at the bottom of it all is the fact that I want this, no matter how hard I try to ignore it, and the rest is just details. If you’re gonna take me over anyway, you should know that I’m choosing this right now. Dig?”

She leaned in then, mouthing at his neck in a way that made him throw his head back against the couch sharply, stretching out to give her more ground to cover with her hot, wet lips and tongue. His hands snapped into action, both of them grappling at her hips to pull her up flush to him, his cock already hard for her. V whimpered as his groin pushed against her, sinking to meet the friction of his movements with her own. Every motion was intense but not rushed. Her mouth brushed against her own fingers where they were clapped over Johnny’s lips at the end of its journey upward, and she paused, pulling back her hand. He didn’t say anything at first, his eyes locked on her own; then suddenly she was in the air, clinging to him in surprise as he slid his hands underneath her ass and lifted her bodily off the couch like she didn’t weigh a thing.

She had been dropped on beds before, thrown on them even, but she couldn’t remember ever being sat down on one as gently as Johnny had just then, like she was precious. 

“I dig, V,” he said quietly, pulling upward on the hem of her sweatshirt, encouraging her to pull it off and reveal her bare torso and breasts. The leggings came next; he hooked his fingers in the waistband and pulled them down her legs, helping her kick the clingy fabric off. He stared at her then, bare except for her thong, breathing fast and looking at him with anticipation coiled tight in her chest. 

The next kiss was not as gentle. 

His mouth was pushing against hers forcefully, moving her down into the mattress as her lips parted for him without prompting. She licked her way into his mouth and whimpered softly as he stretched out over her, pressing his frame between her legs; at some point, his tactical vest and tank top had glitched themselves into the aether, and she could feel the cold metal of his dog tags caught between their hot torsos. Her hands smoothed themselves over his shoulders, back, and arms, delighting in the sensory exploration of his body she was finally allowing herself. She felt his hand grip her knee and bend her leg, pulling it further up along his hip bone so he could indulge in the soft flesh of her thigh. 

The passion of their mutual physical discovery mounted quickly until they were gasping into one another’s mouths, tender touching transformed into desperate pawing. Johnny was the one to break free of V’s lips to trail sloppy tongue and teeth along her jaw to her ear, whispering harshly into it. “Fuck, kitten, I want to kiss you ‘til you don’t know your own goddamn name any more.” He didn’t wait for a reply before continuing his assault down the column of her throat.

“It’s only one letter, that’s a lot of kissing,” she panted in reply, “but you’re off to a strong start.” She abandoned trying to touch him in favor of threading her fingers in his hair as his head sank lower, between her breasts.

“Good thing I’m a patient man.” He closed his hot mouth over a breast, hand squeezing gently as his tongue lapped at her nipple, teasing it to its full peak against his lips. V moaned properly, her spine arching against the sensation as he released it and blew softly against it, the cold movement of air on her moist skin forcing it to pebble so taut it almost hurt as he shifted to give her other side the same attention. She was quivering now, these thoughtful administrations so opposite of what she expected that every nerve ending felt extra attuned to the surprising sensations. Her hips were lifting to press against him of their own accord, and she felt like a wreck of arousal and desire. “Johnny…” It sounded far more like a plea than she preferred but she could care less at this particular moment. “Touch me, please.”

He hummed his approval against her stomach but he showed no signs of following directions as his mouth traveled lower, stopping to worry at a hip bone before reaching the lace of her thong. “What’s your name? Still know it?”

Was it possible to sound both annoyed and eager all at once? She had succeeded, then. “It’s V, you gonk.”

Johnny shook his head in mock disappointment. “Hm. Not nearly enough kissing, it seems. I’ll have to try harder.” She felt him hook his fingers into her panties then, encouraging her to lift her hips so he could shimmy them down and off to join the rest of her clothes on the floor. 

V suddenly felt self-conscious; she had never felt more bare before someone, and it wasn’t about being naked. She propped herself up on her elbows, her legs trying to close but meeting resistance from his hands. Johnny’s mouth was working languidly upwards along one thigh, heavy-lidded eyes blinking up slowly, drunk on her. Her heart clenched; seeing that look on his face seemed to render any argument she would have made irrelevant. She kept her eyes trained on him even as she felt the brush of his ‘ganic hand along the outside of her sex, his mouth pausing only briefly to ask, “Are ya sure you’re clean offa that junk? Because you are _sopping_ , kitten.”

Her lips twitched into the ghost of a smile. “Nah, that’s all that Silverhand ma…gic,” she replied, her breath hitching as he pushed a finger inside her too slowly and sweetly. She flopped back onto the mattress gracelessly as she felt another join the first, the first touch of his mouth on her cunt enough for her jerk out a hand to his hair again and tug in a desperate attempt for more contact.

It was here, now, that V learned that Johnny hadn’t been lying about his patience. It was a secret weapon he had been sitting on this whole time; he dragged his tongue up and down her so slowly, circled and kissed at her clit so delicately, curled and moved his fingers inside her so minutely. She was a string on his guitar, deftly being tuned so sharp that she might snap at any second. She was in panting, whiny, shivering, sweaty shambles within minutes; the only words she could still form at all were “Johnny,” “please,” and “more.”

He pulled his mouth away just as he felt her insides start draw tight around his fingers, and she wailed angrily, glaring down her heaving chest at him, one fist still curled in the sheet and the other in his hair. He couldn’t stop the lewd smirk from appearing on his face.

“What’s your name, kitten?”

“ _Fucking hell,_ Johnny _,_ if you don’t fuck me right fucking now, I swear I will fucking pull this fucking chip and fucking end us both!”

“‘Definitely not your name.” He pulled his fingers out of her with an obscene squelching noise. V was too worked up to be embarrassed. She tugged on his hair sharply, earning a hiss from his teeth and a sharp slap on her thigh as he climbed atop her again, this time as naked as she was. She felt his erection pressing against her and immediately rocked against it, trying to find the edge of the cliff he had brought her to again.

A proper groan escaped him this time. “Kitten, if you want this for longer than 30 seconds, you need to _chill out._ ” She did it again, earning her another shuddering noise and a searing kiss, his tongue plunging into her mouth at the same time he sunk into her waiting heat.

Johnny gave up a full-body shudder, continuing to press inside her until he felt the resistance of his pelvis against her hips. He hitched one of her knees into his elbow and pushed forward again, deepening the stretch until he had to break away from her lips, panting brokenly with his forehead pressed to hers. “V…this…”

“Yeah,” she replied just as breathily. “Me, either.” He didn’t need to speak for her to know what he was saying; they were linked in the head, and now, something deeper. She could feel it inside her, sure, but also in her bones, in her blood, in her heart, in her brain, in every nerve ending. Everything was electrified, tingling blue in sparks of a greater pleasure than she had ever known. She knew she would never be as connected to anyone as in this singular moment. Tears started to burn in her eyes and she squeezed them shut tightly.

“V, look at me, kitten.” The only reason she dared was because he sounded as destroyed as she did. He swam into focus, wetness escaping the corners of her eyes and rolling back toward the mattress. She had never seen Johnny like this: his hair was a mess, his eyes were wide and wild, his shoulders were shaking with the self-control he was exerting to stay still. She was compelled to lean up and press a gentle kiss to his mouth, placing all the feelings she didn’t have words for into it.

“Johnny.” She whispered against his lips. “Take me over.” 

He choked out something unintelligible as hips finally moved against hers, a slow withdrawal and a purposeful snap forward that left them both seeing stars. There were only two or three more moments of slowness before he started to come unglued, the pace quickening into something just shy of brutal. V stayed propped on her elbows, crushing her mouth to his, only pulling away to whisper encouragements that could barely be heard over the sound of skin slapping together. It wasn’t long before she murmured that she was close and his hand reached down between their bodies to help her along.

“Come for me, kitten,” he panted.

“Come _with_ me, Johnny,” she whimpered back.

She felt his hips stutter at her words, fingers rolling her bundle of nerves between them. The edge of the cliff was rushing at them and they dove off it hand in hand, mouths locked together, swallowing each other’s noises of ecstasy like water. It was stunning. They fell back into the real world in a sweaty heap of limbs, and Johnny _still_ didn’t want to stop kissing her.

\---

**[DUMx2 09:34 PM]:**

_show me ur battle wound, vicious_

**[V 09:35 PM]:**

[image]

_It might even scar. Bravo. : )_

It really was pretty impressive. The cuts themselves had healed fast with Vik’s help, but a semi-circle of angry bruises and red skin was still there. As someone who was wounded a lot, V could not deny a sweet injury when she saw one.

**[DUMx2 09:36 PM]:**

_fuckin preem_

**[DUMx2 09:37 PM]:**

_come 2 tanz 2morrow nite_

**[DUMx2 09:37 PM]:**

_getcha a matching 1_

**[V 09:38 PM]:**

_I just started walking right again from last time. Hit up_

_the blue-haired girl at the bar, she was begging for it._

**[DUMx2 09:39 PM]:**

_did, it was gonked af. not u._

“Damn, V, you’re blowing up in there,” Johnny called from the other room. V paused thoughtfully, spitting the last of her toothpaste foam into the running sink.

“Yeah. It’s Dum Dum. Wanted to see his bite mark.” She sucked in a breath and held it, unsure of how the rest of this was going to go.

“Don’t blame ‘im, it’s bad-ass lookin’.” _Well, that went okay_. So she tried again.

“He wants me to come get a matching one on the other side.”

The pause was longer this time. Long enough she thought it had all gone left; she turned to go out to the other room in a panic when she heard his voice again.

“You want to? He did make you come really fuckin’ hard.”

“I’m sorry, are you considering this?” V couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.

“Watchin’ is a good time. Probably even better when we’re not pissed at each other. Don’t mind sloppy seconds, kitten.” There was a smile in his voice now, too. “Up to you, though.”

 _Well, I’ll be damned._ “I’ll…uh. I’ll think about it.”

“Betcha you are right now.”

“Shut it, Johnny.”

 **[V 09:43 PM]** :

_Maybe next week. ; )_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Comments and constructive feedback welcome. 
> 
> I want to thank everyone who took the time to comment, especially repeat offenders. It was great to interact with fellow fans and you made my first fic experience so positive. CP77 Thot Crew 4 lyfe. :D
> 
> I'm old and bad at social media; I know a lot of y'all hang out on Tumblr. Drop your handle and I will stalk you; use the tag #cp2077thotsociety if you find any juicy inspo! :D Also feel free to please find me on Goodreads if you are active on there; my handle is the same as here for both platforms. 
> 
> I'm definitely going to take a little break—35k in 8 days was pretty hardcore—but I'm excited to write more for you guys, if you'd like. I know some of you have already, but if anyone has any character requests, interesting plot conceits, whatever: please leave them in a comment if you like. I'm pretty shit at coming up with ideas but if someone gives me one, then I can run with it!


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